Ukrainian Catholic leader: ‘Let us pray for our enemies’

CNA Staff   By CNA Staff

March 1, 2022 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 0 Print

 

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk records a video message on March 1, 2022. / Secretariat of the Major Archbishop in Rome.

Kyiv, Ukraine, Mar 1, 2022 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

The leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on Tuesday deplored the deaths of women and children amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while calling on Ukrainians to pray for their enemies.

In a video message recorded in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on March 1, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said that as the sun rose on the sixth day of the conflict, the scale of the devastation was apparent.

“We saw destroyed schools, kindergartens, cinemas, museums, and at sunrise near Kyiv, a rocket struck the maternity ward of a hospital,” he said.

“We ask ourselves ‘why?’ Women and unborn children. Why are they the innocent victims of this war?”

Later on Tuesday, the major archbishop released a video purporting to show the suffering of children amid heavy fighting. The two-minute video showed a mother weeping as medics unsuccessfully attempted to resuscitate her daughter, doctors seeking to revive another lifeless child with a defibrillator, and a youngster lying dead on a floor covered temporarily by a sheet of cardboard.

The video also included images of weeping children taking refuge in underground shelters, as well as women giving birth in temporary accommodation. (Here is a link to the video. Please be aware that the content is graphic.)

The Secretariat of the Major Archbishop in Rome, which distributed the video, said: “The sad toll is getting worse every day: so far 16 children have been killed and 45 injured; thousands are forced to flee their homes, sleep in subways and underground shelters.”

The International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, said on Feb. 28 that it would open an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine.

In his message, Shevchuk paid tribute to what he called “the heroism of our simple people.”

He said that on Feb. 28, “the residents of the city of Berdyansk [in southeastern Ukraine] with bare hands cast out an army bearing weapons with the slogan ‘Berdyansk is Ukraine!’ And above the city hall, the Ukrainian flag was left to wave.”

He commented: “Truly, the words of Christ are being fulfilled: ‘No one has greater love than this: that someone would lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15:13).”

“We see that not hatred, but love conquers. Love gives birth to heroes, but hatred to criminals.”

He went on: “That is why I encourage all of us: let us learn to love in this tragic time. Let us not be taken captive by hatred. Let us not use the language of hatred, nor its words. As ancient wisdom says, the one who hates the enemy is already overcome by him.”

“We will conquer with the power of love, for our homeland, for God, and for our neighbor.”

Later on March 1, Russia’s defense ministry urged residents to leave Kyiv, saying that its forces were preparing to launch “high-precision strikes.”

An airstrike hit Kyiv’s main television tower, damaging the Babi Yar Holocaust memorial, which marks a mass grave containing the remains of more than 33,000 Jews who were murdered at the site in 1941 by Nazi German forces in one of the largest massacres of World War II.

The Secretariat of the Major Archbishop in Rome also issued a statement on March 1 saying that it had received information that the Russian military planned to launch an airstrike on Saint Sophia Cathedral, one of Kyiv’s best-known landmarks. The 11th-century cathedral is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

It said that Shevchuk called “upon all Christians to pray for the protection of this holy site of all Slavic peoples and calls upon the aggressor to refrain from this most horrific act of vandalism.”

It quoted Shevchuk as saying: “May Saint Sophia — the Wisdom of God — illumine those who have considered committing this crime.”

The statement was echoed by the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO), which said that it was “absolutely possible that Russian missiles will hit the Saint Sophia Cathedral due to technical defects in weapon systems.”

Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv, Ukraine. Rbrechko via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv, Ukraine. Rbrechko via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Shevchuk, who has led the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church since 2011, encouraged his flock to heed Pope Francis’ call to fast and pray for peace in Ukraine on March 2, Ash Wednesday.

“I sincerely ask you: let us pray not only for peace in Ukraine, but let us pray for our enemies, for their conversion, for the conversion of Russia, as Our Lady of Fatima requested of us,” the 51-year-old said.

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News Briefs

The policeman who might be a saint

June 9, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Rome, Italy, Jun 9, 2020 / 02:05 pm (CNA).- With police brutality in focus around the world, one priest says it is important to remember a policeman who might one day be declared a saint: Vice-Sergeant Salvo D’Acquisto, an Italian policeman who gave his life for those he had sworn to protect.

During the Second World War, Salvo D’Acquisto was a member of Italy’s Carabinieri police force, and deputy commander of the rural police station of Torrimpietra, outside of Rome.

In September 1943, German soldiers were inspecting boxes of ammunition at a military base nearby. One box exploded, and two German soldiers died. German officials decided the explosion wasn’t an accident. For that, they rounded up and arrested 22 people.

As the local police official, D’Acquisto did an investigation into the explosion, questioning the 22 people who had been arrested.  After his interviews, he tried to explain to the Germans that the explosion was an accident, and that no one in the area was responsible.

But the Nazis were determined to exact revenge. They had the prisoners dig a mass grave, and announced they would be executed.

So Salvo D’Acquisto told the Nazis that he had arranged the explosion, and that he had acted alone.

The civilians were released. D’Acquisto was shot before a firing squad. He was 22 years old.
 
The Italian Military Ordinariate opened a cause for his canonization in 1983 in 1983.

Monsignor Gabriele Teti was the postulator of the policeman’s cause from 2014 to 2018. Himself a former member of the Carabiniere, Teti knows the story of Salvo D’Acquisto in depth.

Teti said that Salvo D’Acquisto considered his membership to Carabinieri a service for his countrymen.

The policeman “went so far as to demonstrate that his life was truly at the service of the people, even to self-sacrifice,” the priest said.

Before his death, said the former postulator, D’Acquisto met a friend who had attended Carabinieri training with him. By then, a large group of Carabinieri had gone underground to fight the Germans in Rome, and this  friend invited D’Acquisto to leave the uniform and join the resistance.

“And he replied that his duty was to protect order and safety, and that his task was not to leave.”

In 2001, Pope St. John Paul II told Italian national police officers that “The history of the Italian Carabinieri shows that the heights of holiness can be reached in the faithful and generous fulfillment of the duties of one’s state. I am thinking here of your colleague, Sergeant Salvo D’Acquisto, awarded a gold medal for military valor, whose cause of beatification is under way.”

The sacrifice of D’Acquisto should be seen in the context of his whole life, the priest said.

“Certainly, he grew up in a very religious family.”

“Since childhood, then, there are small episodes that make us understand the nature of Salvo D’Acquisto. As a child, returning from school, he donated his shoes to a child he always met when returning from school and who was barefoot. Another time, he rushed to save a child who was about to end up under a train.”

The policeman’s cause for beatification ran aground on “bureaucratic” issues, Teti said. A cause for his martyrdom was set up, but Salvo D’Acquisto’s sacrifice falls more easily into a new category of saints, those who have made a “gift of life,” the priest said. His cause continues to be considered at the Vatican.

In Italy, the priests said, “devotion to Salvo D’Acquisto is everywhere. So much so that some even say that there is no need to make him a saint, given that they already consider him a blessed servant of God.”

 

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