Delivering aid in Ukraine’s flooded Kherson area has become a life-threatening task. Aid workers with Caritas and other organizations told OSV News they cannot go on rescue boats without wearing bulletproof vests and military helmets, as Russian troops have continued to fire on civilian victims and rescuers.
The destruction of a dam and hydroelectric power plant in a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine marks a “dastardly and diabolical act” that “defies imagination,” Archbishop Borys Gudziak, metropolitan of Ukrainian Catholics in the U.S., told OSV News.
As Pope Francis’ emissary to Ukraine closed a two-day trip to Kyiv for talks on a possible ceasefire with Russia, Ukrainian authorities voiced gratitude for the visit but insisted on following their own peace plan.
Asking European leaders for “creative efforts for peace” in Ukraine, the Vatican secretary of state said the Holy See “will continue to do its part.”
Ukrainian church leaders have cautiously welcomed news of a Vatican visit by their country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after a fresh wave of Russian missile attacks in anticipation of a counteroffensive by Kyiv’s forces.
Ivan Smyglia and Denys Kurpikov say they had “no other option” but to assist in delivering food and much-needed supplies to some of the hardest-to-reach and most dangerous places in a country at war.
Shortly after urging people to pray the rosary for peace and entrusting the people of Ukraine to Mary’s care, Pope Francis met briefly with Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, director of external relations for the Russian Orthodox Church.
Russia’s seizure of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine has undermined global nuclear security, while serving as a “wake-up call” to ending energy dependence on Russia, said experts at a recent panel discussion hosted by a Catholic college.
The Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known colloquially as the “Dominican Church,” is the best-known landmark in Ternopil in western Ukraine. Before World War II, it was a Dominican Catholic Church, closed by the communists in 1945 and handed over to Ukrainian Catholics in 1989.
A close papal adviser has said that despite a spate of denials, the secret Vatican peace mission to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that Pope Francis referenced over the weekend does, in fact, exist and could yield results within a few weeks’ time.
