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Francis calls out weapons manufactures and issues a fervent appeal for peace at an All Souls Day Mass celebrated amidst the graves of World War II fallen
By Loup Besmond de Senneville | Vatican City
With a military cemetery on a hill in Rome as his backdrop, Pope Francis on Tuesday issued a stinging rebuke of the arms industry and called on manufacturers to stop making weapons of war.
"These graves are a message of peace. Stop, brothers and sisters. Arms manufacturers, you need to stop. Stop," the pope said with emotion during a Mass for All Souls Day at a cemetery for French soldiers who died in Italy during World War II.
"These graves are calling out. They call out on their own. They call: peace!" Francis said as he stood amidst the graves of 1,700 soldiers who died during battles waged in 1944.
"They died in the war," the pope said, looking at the graves he had just decorated with a white rose.
"They died because they were called to defend homeland, values, ideals… but also sad and regrettable political situations," he continued.
Before praising these "victims of war", the 84-year-old pope recalled that this war had "eaten the children of the fatherland".
He made particular mention of the estimated 40,000 soldiers and civilians who died on "the beaches of Normandy".
Improvising his speech while the French flag fluttered in the breeze behind him, the pope then recounted the following:
"I stopped in front of a grave, right there," he said, pointing to a tombstone marked "Unknown. Died for France. 1944".
"There's not even a name... This is the tragedy of war," observed Francis, who would have been only seven or eight years old when this soldier died.
He said he was "sure" that these soldiers were now "with the Lord".
"But are we… fighting enough so that there are no wars? So that the economy of countries is not strengthened by the arms industry?" he asked.
Francis has celebrated Mass at a nearby cemetery every November 2, the day the Church commemorates the dead, since 2016.
This was just the second time he chose a military cemetery. He celebrated the 2017 All Souls Day Mass at the US military cemetery in Nettuno on the coast south of Rome.
In 2019, the pope celebrated the November 2 liturgy in the Catacombs of Priscilla. During his first three years as Bishop of Rome, he followed the custom of his immediate predecessors who frequently celebrated Mass in a cemetery on the previous day's Feast of All Saints.
Testimony from the descendant of a soldier "who died for France"
These papal visits mean a lot for those whose ancestors are buried in these cemeteries.
This was particularly true this year for Corinne Lavabre whose uncle – Pierre Xueref – is among those buried in the French military cemetery, which is located on Monte Mario just beyond the Vatican.
"He was a seminarian in Tunisia, had been enlisted in the shock battalion and killed during the landing on the island of Elba," Lavabre explained.
The young man was only 20 years old at the time.
His battalion was formed in Algiers as a special commando unit and was employed during the reconquest of Corsica in September and October 1943.
It then took part in the capture of Elba Island the following June.
Xueref died on the 17th, the first day of the French invasion. And though Corinne Lavabre never knew her uncle, he is still very much alive in her family's memory.
"My mother and her brothers and sisters often say that the people buried there were somewhat forgotten by France. They were never decorated. However, they were shot at by the Germans at the foot of the cliffs," she said.
This painful memory was also fed by an unbearable wait at the end of the war.
"After the disappearance of my uncle, my grandparents waited one or two years without knowing what had become of their son. At first they were told he was a prisoner somewhere, then they were told he was dead," Lavabre recalled.
She said the pope's visit to the Monte Mario cemetery was "a tribute to [her] seminarian uncle who died for France".
The cemetery contains 1,709 graves of the expeditionary force, out of the 7,000 men killed during this campaign, which involved 125,000 combatants.
The cemetery contains the remains of 1,142 Muslim soldiers, Goumiers, mostly Moroccan, who served in the French army.
Another 4,345 soldiers are buried in the town of Venafro, 150 kilometers southeast of Rome.
Lavabre and her mother were not able to attend the papal Mass on Tuesday, but followed it on television, as they kept the memory of Pierre Xueref.
"My mother always told me that her brother's dream was to see Saint Peter's," she said.
"From the cemetery, you can see the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. There is something a little mysterious about this."
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