Vatican News / Karol Darmoros, Benedetta Capelli
Help during attacks
The visit began on Tuesday, after an approximately 12-hour car journey from Warsaw. A day later, after Mass at the nunciature, Archbishop Marín de San Martín visited a Caritas-Spes center together with Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas and Bishop Oleksandr Jazłowiecki.
The center distributes food, offers shelter during attacks, and provides psychological support to, among others, single mothers raising children while their husbands are at the front. For the youngest, many of whom have not attended in-person classes for years and live far from their friends, it organizes meetings and activities.
Shelter underground
Volunteers showed the envoy of Leo XIV the places where people can warm up, eat, and charge their phones during bombings. Beds have been set up in the underground shelter. The archbishop blessed the premises and the people staying there, praying for God’s protection for them.
A parish that feeds
In Kyiv, the delegation also visited a Catholic church still under construction. The already active parish prepares hundreds of hot meals every day for those in need, regardless of their denomination. Thanks to generators, it provides electricity and heating, and offers shelter at night.
At the Greek Catholic curia, further forms of assistance were presented: meals for those in need, material, spiritual, and psychological support for soldiers, and the activities of a radio station broadcasting the Pope’s teachings.
Hope next to the ruins
On the outskirts of Kyiv, the delegation visited a small center near a bombed-out building. One of the military chaplains created a community there that welcomes families, provides psychological and material help, and organizes activities for children.
For Easter, the youngest painted Easter eggs with their fathers who had returned from the front for a few days. Volunteers and the priest caring for the center sang a song with the words: “Mother taught me to sing about blossoming hope.”
The program of the mission, which will last until October 30, also includes Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, and Fastiv, in addition to Kyiv.
