Pope Francis has condemned the routine use of “conventional weapons” against civilian targets in a message to Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, sent the day after a warehouse in Ukraine containing 300 tons of humanitarian aid was destroyed in a Russian drone attack.
On March 9, 2022, Valentina Polischak fled Huliaipole, Ukraine. It was four days after Russian soldiers had invaded her small town in the southern part of the country, about 90 miles northwest of Mariupol, and “shot all of the cars and homes,” leaving it without running water or electricity.
A Ukrainian Catholic bishop has urged Russians to learn lessons from the fate of mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, and choose “true democracy” rather than “an unstable dictatorship.”
Russian occupiers launched an attack Aug. 22 on St. Teresa of the Child of Jesus Roman Catholic Church in the town of Skadovsk, located in the Kherson region in eastern Ukraine, Bishop Stanislav Szyrokoradiuk of Odessa-Simferopol confirmed on Facebook.
Fifteen World Youth Day pilgrims from Ukraine, most of whom had lost a father or other close relative in the war, had a private meeting with Pope Francis Aug. 3.
Priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have called for breaking ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, following a Russian attack on Odesa that destroyed a historic cathedral while killing two and injuring at least 22, including four children.
During a meeting with Pope Francis’s special envoy for Ukraine on Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden shared his wishes for the pontiff’s “continued ministry and global leadership,” according to a brief White House statement, but the two men apparently did not identify any specific new pathways to peace.
Italian Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, Pope Francis’s personal envoy for the Ukraine-Russia war, will meet with President Joe Biden on July 18 as part of his current trip to Washington to promote peace and discuss solutions to the conflict, the White House has announced.
Pope Francis’s personal envoy for the Ukraine-Russia war, Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, is in Washington this week in a bid to advance talks on humanitarian relief and peace efforts, the Vatican announced Monday.
Continuing his peace mission on behalf of Pope Francis amid the war in Ukraine, Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi met Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and other leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church Thursday, just days after the Orthodox prelates stood uniformly behind Russian President Vladimir Putin during a short-lived insurrection by Wagner Group mercenaries.
