Ethan Hawke had a message for Pope Francis during his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday (19 July).
The actor discussed the pontiff’s namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, who marched to Egypt to meet with sultan al-Kamil and attempt to put an end to the conflict of the Fifth Crusade.
Hawke, who is an Episcopalian Christian, told Colbert about his plans to write to the pope, asking him to lead a similar march to Ukraine in order to bring about peace amid the ongoing Russian invasion.
“Pope Francis should take his namesake, and if he would do it, if he would lead a march from Belarus to Mariupol, and we would all go,” Hawke said. “And we could bring the refugees to their homes. And, like, priests and rabbis, and we could all go and say you have to stop killing children.”
Pope Francis recently drew criticism for saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may have been “in some way provoked”, though, he previously called the conflict “cruel and senseless” and has also repeatedly spoken about the suffering of Ukrainians.
“The choice shouldn’t be whether to escalate the war, or for democracy to fail,” Hawke said. “I feel like the grown-ups of the world need to stand up and say, ‘You’re not allowed to bomb and kill children. You’re not allowed to do it. You gotta behave like a grown up.’
“And that way we could focus our energy on taking care of the planet and address the real [crises] that are happening right now, instead of making them up.”
Asked why the pope was the man to call on, the Training Day star answered: “I keep thinking about where the voice for non-violence is.
“Where is Martin Luther King? Where is Mother Teresa? Where is Nelson Mandela? Where are the voices of people to ask us to join together? And I feel like he’s one of the very few people I can think of that has that moral authority.”
