Ethan Hawke calls on Pope Francis to stop President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine: ‘Where is the voice for non-violence?’-Emily Bashforth-Entertainment – Metro

He believes there needs to be an ‘act of peace’ (Picture: Getty/AFP)

Ethan Hawke thinks Pope Francis can stop Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and is counting on him stepping in.

The Black Phone actor has called on the head of the Catholic church to follow the example of his namesake Saint Francis of Assisi – who ‘marched across the desert to the battlefield in the fifth crusade to try to have audience with the sultan’ as an ‘act of peace’ – by standing up to the Russian president.

Putin launched the invasion on Ukraine in February, with more than nine million people now thought to have fled their homes in search of safety.

Appearing on The Late Show this week, Ethan said: ‘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.

‘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.’

He added: ‘The choice shouldn’t be whether to escalate the war, or for democracy to fail.’

The actor believes Pope Francis is one of few figures with ‘moral authority’ (Picture: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)

The star insisted people need to take a stand against Putin and his actions, which would then give people time to ‘focus our energy’ on other issues, such as climate change.

He said he feels 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”.’

Ethan added that there are ‘real crises that are happening right now’ that need to be addressed, rather than ‘making them up’.

The actor is calling on the Pope to step in (Picture: PA)

Elsewhere, the 51-year-old star explained he singled out Pope Francis specifically because he commands a ‘moral authority’ that few other authoritative figures have.

‘The reason why him, I keep thinking about where the voice for non-violence is. Where is Martin Luther King? Where is Mother Teresa? Where is Nelson Mandela?’

He asked ‘where are the voices of people to ask us to join together?’, saying he feels like the Pope is ‘one of the very few people that has that moral authority’.

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As it stands, experts say the total number of deaths given for people in the Ukraine war is likely to be a severe underestimate.

Both Ukraine and Russia claim the number is in the tens of thousands, but this is not certain.

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