Australian Catholic Bishops Conference President Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB met with members of the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church who were meeting in Melbourne this week. Source: ACBC Media Blog.
Ukrainian Catholic Church Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk presided over the meeting. He had travelled to Melbourne from Ukraine for the meeting, together with other bishops from Ukraine, the United States, Germany and Poland as well as Cardinal Mykola Bychok CSsR, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania.
Archbishop Costelloe, in his address to the Permanent Synod, assured the bishops of the warm welcome which the bishops of Australia wished to extend to them.
“You do the Church in Australia a great honour by choosing, for the first time, to hold your Synod meeting here among us,” Archbishop Costelloe said.
The Archbishop also reiterated the determination of the bishops to continue to encourage all Catholics in Australia to offer their ongoing prayerful support, material and spiritual assistance for the Ukrainian people as they continue to face the ongoing bombardment of their cities and towns, the endless destruction of their infrastructure, and the heavy death toll of both their armed forces and their civilian population.
Major Archbishop Shevchuk, in his reply, detailed the extent of what he rightly called the deep trauma of his people, as by night they responded to air-raid warnings and by day they waited in fear for news of their loved ones fighting the aggressors.
“We will be facing many decades, and indeed generations, when the main pastoral concern of our bishops and priests will be the deep wounds which have been, and continue to be, inflicted on our people and our country,” Major Archbishop Shevchuk said.
“ So please ask the bishops and the people of Australia to continue to pray for us. Only prayer can win for us the peace for which we all long”.
Before concluding his address, Archbishop Shevchuk offered Archbishop Costelloe and his brother bishops a formal invitation to travel to Ukraine when it is possible to do so.
“The presence in Ukraine of our brothers in the College of Bishops, and though them the presence of their local Churches is a source of enormous consolation and strength for all of us,” he said.
“It is a sign that we are not alone as we confront the evil which has been unleashed upon us.”
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Conference president addresses Ukrainian Catholic leaders (ACBC Media Blog)
