"The tragic reality of this war that seems to have no end, demands of everyone a common creative effort to imagine and forge paths of peace," the pope told a delegation from the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis has consistently called for an end to the hostilities, denouncing the destruction of Ukrainian communities, the loss of thousands of lives and the displacement of millions. Ukraine was also the biggest beneficiary of the papal charity Peter's Pence in 2022.

In May, the pope appointed Zuppi as his peace envoy. The cardinal recently held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during his visit to Kyiv.

A Vatican statement said Zuppi's consultations in Moscow included meetings with Yuri Ushakov, an adviser to President Vladimir Putin, and Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church.

"(The visit was) aimed at identifying humanitarian initiatives which could open roads to peace," the statement said. It added that further steps would be taken, but gave no details.

Zuppi and Kirill discussed collaborating on a peaceful resolution to the war and the possibility of a future meeting between Pope Francis and the patriarch. Their meeting was deemed fruitful and focused primarily on promoting humanitarian initiatives.

Addressing the challenges in the relationship between Russia and the West, Kirill stressed the importance of preventing a large-scale armed conflict. He called on all parties involved to work together for peace and justice.

"I believe that in the current conditions, marked by great risks and dangers, the church can, through joined efforts, prevent the negative development of the political circumstances," Kirill said at the meeting, according to a statement.

Papal visit to Moscow would be unprecedented

While it may be premature to expect a visit from Pope Francis to Moscow, Vatican diplomacy expert Victor Gaetan noted the pope's desire to make an official trip to Russia, which would be unprecedented.

"The meeting between Kirill and Zuppi at this time is a symbol that the two lungs of the church, the Catholic and Orthodox are healthy and may also be a prelude to Pope Francis meeting with Kirill," Gaetan said.

According to Gaetan, the Vatican mission is also aimed at sending a message to the international community. "I read Cardinal Zuppi's very public trip as a lecture Pope Francis is delivering to NATO countries: No diplomacy is possible without direct personal encounter," he said.

During Zuppi's visit, the cardinal also met with Russian officials to discuss humanitarian issues in Ukraine, particularly the well-being of displaced minors.

The results of Zuppi's mission will be presented to Pope Francis to determine future steps and humanitarian initiatives.

Sources

US News & World Report

Religion News Service

America Magazine

CathNews New Zealand

The war in Ukraine has forced nearly six million to flee the country and has displaced more than seven million internally.

New Zealand hung out the welcome mat in March, when the Government provided 4,000 special visas for family members of Ukrainians living here.

This visa allows Ukrainian-born New Zealand citizens and residents here to bring in members of their Ukrainian family whose lives are at risk because of Russia's war.

So far, the take-up has been poor.

A World Vision and Mahi survey found fewer than 160 people have arrived on the special visa because of barriers around the application process - just 14 per cent of eligible visas have been issued so far.

Immigration New Zealand says that, since the survey, an additional 34 people have arrived on the visa.

World Vision and Mahi want our Ukraine visa policy to be amended.

"The policy is not fit for purpose and needs to be amended urgently so that Ukrainian refugees, displaced people, families torn apart and particularly at-risk children can assess it and resettle in New Zealand where they can be free from conflict," says Rebekah Armstrong, World Vision's head of advocacy and justice.

Concern over the low number of applications for the special visa prompted World Vision and Mahi to conduct the survey.

The survey found that New Zealand's cost of living and housing, and the costs of flights are barriers preventing a third of potential applicants from applying.

The survey findings will be provided to the Minister of Immigration. Accompanying it will be a call to establish a humanitarian relocation support fund and settlement support to assist with accommodation, essentials and employment for those escaping Ukraine.

So many Ukrainians have left with nothing more than the clothes on their back, says one recent arrival, Valeriya Horyayeva (pictured), who was reunited with her mother in Nelson.

"They arrive in New Zealand with so little and have little support here, so it would be good to have more assistance for those who need it."

Older people especially need resettlement help, she says.

Mahi for Ukraine spokeswoman Kate Turska said Ukrainians here sponsoring families were put under severe financial pressure.

"It is up to the sponsor to feed, clothe and house everyone and pay for other costs such as healthcare," she says.

"It's a heartbreaking situation for sponsors to find themselves in, especially when many of their family members would meet the definition of a refugee."

Immigration NZ says it prioritises urgent visa applications from Ukrainian nationals.

As of June 7, INZ had received 882 sponsorship requests, 877 visa applications and had granted 729 visas under the 2022 Special Ukraine Visa category.

"Eligibility requires the sponsor to have been born in Ukraine or to hold or have held Ukrainian citizenship or permanent residence, and the applicant to be a normal resident of Ukraine, including Crimea, as of January 2022," INZ says.

"There are currently no plans to change the criteria."

Source

• NZ Herald

It also poses two big challenges to the global Church.

War is everyone's responsibility

"First, there is a need for a new reflection on the social doctrine of the Church on the theme of war and peace," Shevchuck says.

"The other ... is the relationship between the Church and the State.

"There is an obvious need to work out the correct language to describe the new challenges in these areas but also to have the courage at the ecumenical level to find the right answers."

Pope Francis agrees.

"We must ask ourselves - what have the churches done and what can they do to contribute to the development of a world community, capable of realising fraternity starting with peoples and nations that live social friendship?

"It is a question that we must think about together."

Ukraine unity

The spirit of common cause in the majority Orthodox nation starts with Ukraine's Council of Churches and Religious Communities (CCRC), Shevchuck explained to the Pontifical Council.

He is the head of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine, the largest of the 23 Eastern churches in communion with Rome.

The Council "represents 95 percent of religious society," and striving for peace is its principal aim, he explained.

As an example: "on the eve of the Russian attack ... the Council made an appeal to the Russian president to stop.

"We proposed ourselves as mediators...of peace.

"The ecumenical reaction to this war has been one of explicit condemnation."

He specifically named and thanked Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the Ecumenical Council of Churches and Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, who have voiced solidarity with Ukraine.

He also noted the only Christian group to stand apart from the CCRC is the Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill.

This poses a serious danger for Christianity in the modern world, Shevchuck said.

Breaking communion

The Sunday after the war began, Kirill explained the war is justified and must be fought to defend Orthodoxy.

At least 15 of the 53 eparchies in communion with Moscow now refuse to commemorate Kirill during the liturgy, Shevchuck said.

The Moscow Patriarchate community in Ukraine feels "neglected and forgotten,". Most of the churches destroyed by the Russian army were theirs.

So far, about 100 churches, monasteries and religious buildings have been destroyed.

Humanitarian catastrophe

The Ukraine situation is a "humanitarian catastrophe," says Shevchuk.

He offers facts: 10 million Ukrainian citizens have fled their homes. Nearly five million have abandoned the country. Mass graves have been found. People have been violated.

Putin has two goals for Ukraine, Shevchick said: demilitarisation and denazification.

Demilitarisation would help fulfil the second goal - proving the war is aiming to eliminate the Ukrainian people.

The instructions given to the Russian army on what to do with the Ukrainian people can be compared to "a textbook genocide," where "the whole people had to be eliminated."

Source

• Crux Now
• Image: NCR

For him, the smell of burned homes and lives is tied to the metaphoric "smell of sheep".

Francis says priests need to learn what suffering smells like. It will be coming from human lives and they need to look after them, in the same way as shepherds care for their flocks.

"Every city has its own smell of suffering. It can't be described. The church here must become saturated with this smell and stay close by with different ways of helping," says Father Oleksandr Khalayim.

"The real church is a flexible church" that can be wherever it is needed.

Khalayim, a military chaplain and missionary of mercy, lives near the borders of Moldova and Romania.

Bringing mercy and forgiveness as a chaplain to a war zone requires "dialogue before forgiveness," he says.

"Forgiveness must be accepted and it is a long journey" that may take "three or four generations."

"For me, right now it is hard to talk about forgiveness if bombs keep coming, if children are still being killed, if our cities are still being bombed.

"To forgive what women and children have suffered is truly difficult."

He acknowledges that as Christians we must talk about forgiveness. At the same time, exploiting the word "forgiveness" is not acceptable, as forgiveness comes with responsibility.

"God forgave not just with words but with his heart. It will be necessary to have a long period of care for the heart," he says.

When he's speaking to soldiers in his role as a missionary of mercy, Khalayim says he explains that mercy means asking them not to kill if it is possible.

That's not easy for those on the frontlines defending their country.

"Even this is mercy — to defend your home and family," Khalayim says.

When the war broke out, he says he chose to help like a shepherd by being close to people — soldiers, volunteers and especially the elderly, "so no one feels alone."

The church in Ukraine smells of burning, war and death, he says.

In Bucha and Gostomel, there is "the stench of things scorched" and, in Chernihiv, it smells like "abandonment with everything destroyed" and people left on their own and helpless.

"One person couldn't move for five days, no one could help. The only thing she could do was get water from the home heating radiator to drink. That's how she survived."

Solidarity and assistance to Ukraine are important, Khalayim says.

People who will seek out the truth are necessary as well, he adds.

"The enemy hides behind many lies and propaganda. The truth cries out, there is no need to be afraid to tell the truth."

At the same time, Khalayim admits exposing the truth may come at a cost and result in losing material security or one's own life.

Source

• NCR
• CBS News

Rather than use the Russian president's name, Francis instead referred to Putin as "some potentate" who had unleashed the threat of nuclear war on the world in an "infantile and destructive aggression" under the guise of "anachronist claims of nationalistic interests".

"From the east of Europe, from the land of the sunrise, the dark shadows of war have now spread.

"We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past," the pope said.

The "icy winds of war, which bring only death, destruction and hatred in their wake, have swept down powerfully upon the lives of many people and affected us all," Francis said.

Moscow denies targeting civilians in its so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine.

It claims this "operation" - aka "war" to the rest of the world including the pope - is meant not to occupy territory but to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour.

The Vatican, which in recent years has forged unprecedented new relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, has offered itself as a potential mediator.

So far, the offer hasn't been taken up, although the pope has had several invitations to visit as a messenger of peace.

Invitations for peace talks have been proffered by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Ukraine's Byzantine-rite Catholic Church, and Ukraine's ambassador to the Vatican, Andriy Yurash.

Francis has spoken on the phone with Zelensky and Shevchuk.

Although Francis has told reporters the idea of such a visit is being considered, he added that no plans have been made yet.

Forging peace in a savage war

It is unusual for the Vatican to directly challenge aggressors. Instead, it tends to work on the side of keeping open options for dialogue.

That may be why to date, despite his obvious concern and outrage over the war, Francis has referred to Russia directly only in prayers, such as during a special global event for peace on March 25.

"Now in the night of the war that is fallen upon humanity, let us not allow the dream of peace to fade," he said on that occasion.

He also criticised the armaments industry and expressed distress at the fading enthusiasm for peace that emerged after World War Two.

The clash of interests and ideologies have "re-emerged powerfully in the seductions of autocracy, new forms of imperialism (and) widespread aggressiveness," he said.

Source

• Global News
• Reuters
• Image: YahooNews

"Let us think of these women and children who in time, without work, separated from their husbands, will be sought out by the ‘vultures' of society. Please, let us protect them," tweeted Pope Francis.

Catholic aid workers' concerns are being broadcast by police.

In Germany, they have been warning for weeks that aid workers, volunteers and refugees should be vigilant at areas where refugees arrive.

They are also tweeting warnings to women and unaccompanied young people in German, Russian and Ukrainian saying they must beware of "suspicious offers of accommodation — contact official agencies only."

Their warnings are timely.

As hundreds of Ukrainian refugees arrive at Munich's main station each day, they run the gauntlet of human traffickers who mingle with aid workers, volunteers and ordinary citizens.

According to several reports, an increasing number of men who want to force women into prostitution are offering "assistance" at the stations.

"Here at the main station, a lot is being done — there is a specialised counselling centre 24 hours a day," the head of the Catholic Railway Station Mission in Munich says.

She and her Protestant counterpart are responsible for the ecumenical refugee reception centre at the station.

"We are on site 24 hours a day; Caritas is here 24 hours a day. It is publicly pointed out in multilingual flyers that the women should be careful. The police are on site. It is not a mass phenomenon, but we have already experienced isolated cases of attempted human trafficking and could be of help to prevent it. I am confident that we have this problem under control here, but it does exist."

Another Caritas spokesperson, said, "There is definitely an attempt to approach these women with their children."

At Berlin's main railway station, mostly older men have been seen holding up signs with offers of accommodation and overnight stays for women, just like real helpers. Suspicions are roused, though, when they show their signs only to certain women. Sometimes they also offer money.

The police have banned certain men from the station premises - but as they haven't committed any crimes, the police could not act further.

On March 15, Valiant Richey (the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's special representative and coordinator for combating human trafficking) gathered representatives of 17 European countries affected by the humanitarian crisis.

The governments of Austria, France, Germany, Romania and Slovakia report monitoring online searches after a spike was noted in people seeking Ukrainian women for sex and marriage. They also distributed leaflets translated into Ukrainian to inform people on the move of their rights and options.

Unfortunately, the warnings sometimes cause the refugees to distrust innocent parties and genuine offers of help.

Source

• Catholic News Service
• Image: Berlin.de

According to the Italian news agency SIR, forty people were sheltering in the basement of the diocesan chancery when the bomb landed on March 1, but no injuries were reported.

Kharkiv is the second-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of 1.4 million people. The city has been under bombardment from Russian forces resulting in the deaths of civilians, including children.

Father Gregorio Semenkov, chancellor of the Latin Rite Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia, told SIR, "This morning was hell; the bomb fell on the curia."

"In the curia these days there are many people, many mothers with children. We are a total of 40 people, and we put them in a safe place. We were all underground, and luckily the bomb hit high up.

"There were bombings in the city centre. The attacks targeted government offices. The bombs also hit the people who were waiting to get bread, and just at that moment, a bomb fell on the curia.

"There are many dead. For now, there is no news about the number of victims and wounded. The internet connection is down, so we don't have updated information."

The Latin Rite Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia was created in 2002 and is centred on the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kharkiv. It is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Lviv of the Latins in western Ukraine.

While most Catholics belong to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (in communion with Rome), a minority of Catholics in Ukraine are Latin Rite.

The Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need said on February 28 that Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk, the Latin Rite bishop of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia, has "spent the past days in a bunker with several families, as well as with his Orthodox counterpart.

"My message is short because we are under constant bombardment, and I am a little nervous. But we try to act normally. God bless you!"

Sources

Catholic News Agency

CathNews NZ

In a video message on February 27, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk noted that the residents of Ukraine's capital are unable to attend church due to a government-mandated curfew. Citizens must stay indoors until Monday morning as Russian forces advance on the city.

"But in that case, the Church will come to the people. Our priests will descend to the underground, they will descend to the bomb shelters, and there they will celebrate the Divine Liturgy" Shevchuk said in the video released by the Secretariat of the Major Archbishop in Rome.

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