As a relentless winter descends upon war-torn Ukraine with temperatures dropping to -15 degrees Celsius, the Holy See has intensified its humanitarian response to the nation’s energy and health crises. Source: Catholic Review.
According to a Vatican News report on Monday, three trucks carrying 80 electricity generators departed Rome’s Basilica of St Sophia, known as the church of the Ukrainians, and arrived in Kyiv and Fastiv, located 72 kilometres southwest of the capital.
The delivery, which included food and medicine, was sent to the country at Pope Leo XIV’s request and coordinated by the Dicastery for the Service of Charity.
In a telephone interview with OSV News yesterday, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner and prefect of the dicastery, said the aid mission was a tangible sign that the Pope has not forgotten the suffering of the Ukrainian people.
“The Holy Father is very, very attentive to everything that happens,” Cardinal Krajewski said, noting that one does not need a great imagination to understand the agony of a people living without electricity in the dead of winter. “The Church must be exactly where the people suffer”.
With the war now entering its fourth year, Russia has been focusing its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving thousands of innocent civilians without electricity and heat in the cold winter season.
According to the Reuters news agency, a Russian drone attack on Monday struck energy facilities in the Odesa region, leaving an estimated 95,000 people without power.
Cardinal Krajewski told OSV News that to ensure supplies are distributed to those in need, the dicastery works through local bishops and parish priests, including a Dominican-run centre that dispatches high-power generators to high-need areas such as Odesa, Kharkiv and Kyiv.
The medicines sent by the dicastery, according to Vatican News, include antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and supplements, as well as melatonin to help people who, in a state of chronic insomnia and trauma, cannot sleep.
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Vatican aid a sign of Pope Leo’s closeness to suffering Ukrainians, papal almoner says (By Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News via Catholic Review)
