war

In the spotlight: Ukraine war anniversary, Ash Wednesday, remembering a murdered bishop

The call to make sacrifices for others out of love remains urgent as so many people continue to suffer from war, violence, exclusion and poverty, Pope Francis said.

A year after Russia started its all-out attack on Ukraine, Archbishop Shevchuk said he felt “joy and gratitude” that Ukraine is still there, that the Ukrainian church has found myriad ways to support the people, and that Catholics around the globe have shown their solidarity, including concretely by sending aid.

Looking out at tens of thousands of smiling faces, Pope Francis told South Sudanese Catholics that the only way the country will get out of the darkness of violence is with the light of their faith and their commitment to peace.

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.

“We couldn’t leave those poor people alone,” Orionine Sister Renata Jurczak said. “We had to help them.”

In an interview published Dec. 18, the day after his 86th birthday, Pope Francis said that during the time that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone was Vatican secretary of state, a position he left in October 2013, he gave a resignation letter to the cardinal.

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