“Praise increases joy. Praise is like a ladder: it leads hearts upward,” Pope Francis said. “Praise elevates souls and defeats the temptation to give up.”

“I have had two [face-to-face] meetings with Pope Francis, and other members of the government have met him, too,” Ukraine’s President Zelensky said in an interview. “I am most grateful to him for these encounters. He is helping us!”

Though he did not mention Ukraine specifically, Pope Francis used his visit today to the Fátima shrine in Portugal to pray for peace.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed into law a bill moving the official observance of Christmas Day to Dec. 25 from Jan. 7, when Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church mark the holiday.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See said the onslaught of attacks on Odesa and several surrounding cities shows that Russia’s actions are no different than the actions of a terrorist organization.

The top priority for Pope Francis' peace envoy in his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden was the repatriation of children forcibly deported from Ukraine to Russia, the papal nuncio to the United States said.