Tag: Vatican City

ROME (CNS) — As Russian troops approached Ukraine’s capital, Pope Francis phoned the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, offering his encouragement and promising, “I will do everything I can” to help.

The pope called Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, major archbishop of the Eastern-rite church, late in the afternoon Feb. 25, according to the Ukrainian Catholic Church’s press office in Rome.

Earlier in the day, breaking usual diplomatic practice, Pope Francis had left the Vatican and gone to the Russian Embassy to the Holy See “to express his concern for the war,” said Matteo Bruni, the head of the Vatican press office.

Archbishop Shevchuk’s office said that, during the phone call, Pope Francis asked him about the situation in Kyiv and throughout Ukraine on the second full day of the Russian attack. According to multiple news reports, Russian troops were advancing on the capital, Kyiv, where the archbishop has remained.

Pope Francis asked about the bishops and priests in the areas of heaviest fighting, the Ukrainian Catholic press office said. And he thanked the church for its closeness to the people.

“In particular, the pope praised the decision to remain with the people and to be at the service of the neediest,” including by opening the basement of Resurrection Cathedral in Kyiv as a bomb shelter, which already was being used by dozens of people, including families with children.

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CLEVELAND (CNS) — An estimated 5.2 million children in 21 countries, including the United States, lost at least one parent, a custodial grandparent or a primary caregiver to COVID-19 during the first 20 months of the pandemic, social researchers and child well-being advocates said in a new study.

Notably, the researchers estimated that the number of children orphaned because of the pandemic nearly doubled during the six-month period ending Oct. 31, 2021, a period corresponding largely with the surge in the delta variant of the coronavirus.

The total number of orphaned children during the study period parallels the roughly 5 million COVID-19-caused deaths during the same time frame, the study said.

“This finding means that, globally, for every one reported COVID-19 death, at least one child experienced orphanhood or caregiver death,” the researchers concluded.

The study was published online Feb. 24 by the British medical journal The Lancet.

The study defined orphanhood as the death of one or both parents, one or both custodial grandparents, or a primary caregiver.

Catholic Relief Services representatives described the estimates as “eye-opening” and agreed with the researchers’ conclusion that “an evidence-based emergency response is becoming increasingly urgent” to meet the challenges faced by children pushed into orphanhood by the pandemic.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis said his heart was “broken” by the war in Ukraine, and he pleaded again, “Silence the weapons!”

“Many times, we prayed that this path would not be taken,” he told people gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the midday recitation of the Angelus prayer Feb. 27. But rather than giving up, he said, “we beg God more intensely.”

With many of the people in the square holding Ukrainian flags, Pope Francis greeted them the way they traditionally greet each other, “Slava Isusu Chrystu,” meaning, “Glory to Jesus Christ.”

Pope Francis has continued to personally express his concern about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to appeal for peace. The previous evening, he phoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Vatican press office confirmed the call Feb. 26 but provided no details.

Zelenskyy tweeted that he had thanked Pope Francis “for praying for peace in Ukraine and a cease-fire. The Ukrainian people feel the spiritual support of His Holiness.”

The Ukrainian Embassy to the Holy See tweeted, “The Holy Father expressed his deepest sorrow for the tragic events happening in our country.”

The call to Zelenskyy came a day after Pope Francis made the diplomatically unusual gesture of going to the Russian Embassy to the Holy See to express his concern about the war. Usually, a head of state would have an ambassador come to him.

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