Father Volodymyr Radko had one of the best days of his life — and one of the worst — in a span of just 12 days. On Feb. 12, he was ordained at St. Sophia Church on the campus of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, the city where he was born. On Feb. 24, the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
Here is the Vatican text of the Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, sent by the Vatican to bishops throughout the world. Pope Francis has invited bishops and the rest of the world to join him when he recites the prayer March 25 in St. Peter’s Basilica.
While Pope Francis and bishops around the world will consecrate themselves and all humanity to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, they will include the phrase, “especially Russia and Ukraine.”
The Polish Conference of Major Superiors of Women said March 15 that an estimated 18,000 refugees from Ukraine were receiving spiritual, psychological, medical and material help at 924 convents in Poland and that close to 500 of those communities are sheltering almost 3,000 adults — mostly women — and more than 3,000 children.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not just a tragic conflict between two nations, but the center of a spiritual battle wrought by the forces of evil that have pitted brother against brother, said the apostolic nuncio to Ukraine.
Pope Francis telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the president addressed the Italian parliament via video link March 22.
Beginning March 28, residential school survivors, Indigenous elders and youth will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican as a prelude to a papal trip to Canada. The Indigenous want an apology, on Canadian soil, for historic abuses they suffered at government-owned residential schools, many of which were run by the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis again condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine, calling it a “senseless massacre” and “sacrilegious” attack on human life.
Ukraine’s first lady appealed to the World Council of Churches to “be the voice of those who suffer from war today.”
The Vatican published Pope Francis’ calendar for Holy Week and Easter, which includes the Way of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum for the first time in two years.
