Italian ambassador killed in Congo remembered for humanitarian work
- Feb 23, 2021
Although the Ukrainian government has not closed churches during the pandemic, Ukraine was “confronting other pandemics,” said its major archbishop.
A senior Catholic aid worker said humanitarian conditions are deteriorating in eastern Ukraine and urged Western governments and churches not to forget the continuing six-year conflict.
In a phone conversation with Pope Francis, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed for help in securing the release of Ukrainian citizens being held in areas occupied by Russian or pro-Russian forces.
Pope Francis offered prayers for a summit in France that will seek to bring an end to the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine.
Bishop Borys Gudziak, one of nearly 50 Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishops in Rome this week, has said he and his fellow prelates are pushing harder than ever for a papal visit to Ukraine – a trip he said is crucial to ending conflict in the country, but which is being held up by fear of potential reprisal from Russia.
As fighting intensified in eastern Ukraine, the major archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church warned against “appeasing the aggressor” in the five-year war against Russian-backed separatists.