Lacking documents, fearing violence, and needing a host country, many Roma fleeing Ukraine are not able to leave temporary shelters, said two human rights experts in Poland.
![](https://thetablet.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/UKRAINE-ROMA-REFUGEES-1524422-140x93.jpg)
Lacking documents, fearing violence, and needing a host country, many Roma fleeing Ukraine are not able to leave temporary shelters, said two human rights experts in Poland.
Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan told Pope Francis that the Catholic Church in Poland is continuing its efforts to assist the countless refugees from Ukraine fleeing Russia’s destructive war in the country.
Pope Francis renewed his call for an end to the war in Ukraine and strongly denounced the conflict as a barbaric act used by those in power at the cost of innocent lives.
A Catholic bishop in the threatened Ukrainian port of Odessa warned of “ferocious resistance” if Russian forces launch a frontal assault.
Catholic leaders warn the exodus of Ukrainian women and children presents a prime opportunity for human trafficking, and they are taking steps to protect the refugees.
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.
Pope Francis telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the president addressed the Italian parliament via video link March 22.
While bishops in Ukraine and Russia are grateful Pope Francis will consecrate their nations to Mary, other Catholics are eagerly awaiting the text of the pope’s prayer to see if he does it “correctly.”
New York City is home to 600,000 people of Russian descent, many living alongside the 80,000 people who identify as Ukrainian in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
A Ukrainian priest described escaping from his bombed-out parish in Mariupol and said he still hopes some Catholics will survive the relentless Russian onslaught.