The desecrated face of a statue of the crucified Christ in a Jerusalem church should move Catholics around the world “to recognize the pain of so many of our brothers and sisters” in the Holy Land, who have experienced the tragedy of violence and natural disasters, said a top Vatican official.
Over 490,000 people have been displaced and are sheltering in over 500 sites across flood-affected areas of Malawi, as communities begin to reckon with the damage wrought by the Tropical Cyclone Freddy weather system, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak of Philadelphia, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S., told participants at a Feb. 18 ecumenical prayer service in New York that “everywhere (he) went” during a recent trip to Ukraine, “people thanked Americans” for their generous aid and advocacy over the past year.
Following the Feb. 6 earthquake that left more than 40,000 dead and thousands more injured or homeless, humanitarian needs in Turkey and Syria are desperate, especially in Syria that has suffered a bloody civil war for almost 12 years.
Archbishop Shevchuk said he was “very concerned” by news of escalating Russian frontline attacks, as bombing became an “everyday reality” in many regions of Ukraine, and he reiterated his gratitude for Western support.
A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked areas of Syria and Turkey early that morning, toppling hundreds of buildings and killing more than 2,800 people.
hroughout the war, friars from Ukraine have been sending letters to their Dominican communities across the globe, and to journalists, describing efforts by fellow clergy to sustain church life amid scenes of devastation and despair from Lviv in the west to Izyum and Kherson in eastern Ukraine.
The Vatican Dicastery for the Service of Charity, led by Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, spent $2.2 million in 2022 for humanitarian help in Ukraine.
