Watch: Pope Francis’ Shares His April Prayer Intention for Non-violent Culture

Pope Francis shared his monthly prayer intention video for April, urging the Faithful to pray for a non-violent culture.

Pope Francis’ Worldwide Prayer Network of the Apostleship of Prayer developed “The Pope Video” initiative in 2016 as a way to spread the Holy Father’s monthly prayer intentions on the challenges humanity faces in a video based format.

For the month of April, Pope Francis shared his prayer intention that we pray “for a more widespread culture of non-violence, that will progress when countries and citizens alike resort less and less to the use of arms.”

Read below the full prayer intention of Pope Francis, and watch “The Pope Video” for April:

Living, speaking, and acting without violence is not surrendering, losing or giving up anything, but aspiring to everything.

As Saint John XXIII said 60 years ago in his Encyclical Pacem in Terris, war is madness. It’s beyond reason.

Any war, any armed confrontation, always ends in defeat for all.

Let us develop a culture of peace.

Let us remember that, even in cases of self-defense, peace is the ultimate goal, and that a lasting peace can exist only without weapons.

Let us make non-violence a guide for our actions, both in daily life and in international relations.

And let us pray for a more widespread culture of non-violence, that will progress when countries and citizens alike resort less and less to the use of arms.