Church Support for the People of Ukraine

by Jennifer Healy

At a Catholic seminary in western Ukraine, hundreds of people who fled Russian bombs in the east are receiving shelter, food, medical care, as well as spiritual and emotional comfort, thanks to Catholic parishioners in the United States.

The seminary and other diocesan groups in the Archdiocese of Ivano-Frankivsk have so far received more than $50,000 in emergency humanitarian support from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Church in Eastern and Central Europe program which is funded through an annual collection taken up by dioceses in their local parishes. And that is just a fraction of the $520,678 in support that has been poured into the Church’s efforts to aid war victims from this annual collection.
 
“We would like to thank you for your great generosity and support, which we appreciate very much,” Archbishop Volodymyr Vijtyshyn of the Archdiocese of Ivano-Frankivsk wrote to American Catholics who gave to this collection.

The price to care for 100 refugees in the seminary building for a single day is $739 – covering everything from food to staff to utilities. Continuing help is needed at similar centers throughout Ukraine.

The USCCB Church in Central and Eastern Europe program is well-positioned to deliver aid where it is needed most because of the close connection to key partners on the ground. One such partner is Tetiana Stawnychy, the current president of Caritas Ukraine – part of the global Catholic relief network Caritas. She is the former staff director of the USCCB Church in Central and Eastern Europe program.

In her words, Caritas provides “practical love” that includes personal kindness and emotional support along with material assistance.

As leaders of Caritas Ukraine saw the signs of the times before the February 24, 2022, Russian invasion, they requested initial help from the USCCB. The first grant helped them prepare strategically placed shelters, food services, transportation, and social services for an expected flood of refugees and displaced persons.

Caritas reaches every corner of Ukraine through two sister organizations – Caritas-Spes Ukraine, which works with Roman Catholic churches, and Caritas Ukraine which is affiliated with the Eastern Catholic churches in the country.

As Tetiana explains in this video from Catholic News Service, Caritas had delivered about $1.5 million in relief supplies and services – donated by Catholics in multiple nations – through dozens of centers by mid-May. When the war began, Caritas Ukraine had more than 35 offices across Ukraine, working in partnership with more than 3,000 parishes. It has steadily added more service centers throughout the conflict.

Along with delivering food, hygiene supplies, shelter, and other necessities, Caritas provides psychosocial support to traumatized people. Children who have been ripped from their homes as bombs fell are able to act like children again in the child-friendly spaces within shelters. There, supervised by professionals trained to identify those who may need specialized help, they play games or do arts and crafts while their parents work on the family’s survival plan.

In some border areas, Caritas has established a school program to try to keep trauma from becoming a long-term disability. “We work with children, with teachers and the parents,” she said. “As we go forward, that is an experience we will scale up.”

According to the CNS story, leaders of Caritas from Ukraine recently met with Pope Francis, who praised their unity in working together across national, ethnic and, liturgical lines. At that time, 6 million refugees had fled Ukraine while at least 7.7 million were displaced – representing about a third of the population.

Father Vyacheslav Grynevych, a Pallotine priest and director of Caritas-Spes Ukraine, believes that long-term healing must be spiritual. “The war will be ended when we can forgive all of the evil things that we saw, when we restore not just our houses, but our souls, our memory,” he said at a news conference in Rome.

Healing comes from “the medicine of the church, the medicine of love, of hope, and it is our vocation as a Caritas family to share this between people.”

Jennifer Healy is the director of the Church in Central and Eastern Europe program at the USCCB. At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the USCCB urged continued prayer and informed bishops that the annual collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe would be the source of funding for USCCB’s response to humanitarian and pastoral needs in Ukraine and surrounding countries. The USCCB Subcommittee on Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe approved an emergency allocation by special vote to Catholic Church entities in and around Ukraine. As of the end of May 2022, $520,678 has been distributed to dioceses and Catholic organizations in Ukraine and the surrounding countries. Please consider supporting the CCEE program through the collection at Mass. #iGiveCatholicTogether also accepts funds for the program.