Cardinal Krajewski prays at mass grave in Izium. Image Vatican News
Source: Vatican News
During the General Audience today, with pilgrims in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis appealed for prayers for the people of Ukraine. The Pope said he had recently spoken with Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the Papal Almoner, who was in Ukraine on his fourth humanitarian and pastoral mission there.
Shortly after arriving in Ukraine Cardinal Krajewski came under fire while delivering humanitarian aid near the city of Zaporizhzhia. He then visited the recently-liberated Ukrainian city of Izium with Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk of the Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia Diocese, where at least 500 bodies have been found, including 400 in unmarked graves.
“There are neither words nor tears”, the Papal almoner said. “Only prayer can alleviate the heart so burdened by pain.”
“We witnessed a ‘celebration’ – we can say – during which some 50 young men, mostly policemen, firemen, soldiers dressed in white overalls, were digging and carrying away from the graves – many of them common graves – the bodies of Ukrainians who were killed some three to four months ago, some of them just recently buried”, he said.
“One is dumbfounded by such horror”, the Polish Cardinal said. “Even if you know there is war and that ‘war knows no mercy’, seeing so many dead altogether causes feelings that are very difficult to express.”
He described the work of those who unearth and carry the bodies in silence, with “moving and touching participation.”
“One thing that touched me deeply”, the Cardinal said, “was to see these young Ukrainians carrying the bodies in such a delicate way, so quietly, in total silence. It looked like a ‘celebration’. No one spoke, but there were so many policemen and soldiers there… At least 200 people. All of them in silence, with an incredible appreciation for the mystery of death. Truly there was so much to learn from them.”
He said the way they carried the bodies was as if they were doing it for their own family members… “for their parents, children, brothers…”.
Cardinal Krajewski said that together with the Bishop they walked among them reciting the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy over and over. They spent at least three hours doing this, and reiterated that it was a “celebration of mercy”, a totally gratuitous gesture.
He said the experience has stayed with him even having left the site, and that now he is back in Karkhiv, he stands in the chapel and thinks of those young people: “It was a difficult day, also marked by a visit to a police station that had been used as a torture chamber.”
The Cardinal took time to reiterate how the men at the site “showed the beauty that is sometimes hidden in our hearts.”
“They showed a human beauty in a place where there could be only revenge. But no: I was reminded of the words of the Holy Scriptures that tell us that evil must always be overcome with good. A certainty that is balm on the wounds of this war,” he said.
Cardinal Krajewski is now in Kiyv from where he will departs for Rome after having delivered aid in the Zaporizhzhia area together with two other bishops, one Catholic and one Protestant, accompanied by a Ukrainian soldier.
Although he was caught in the crossfire at one point, luckily he escaped unharmed. In the end, he said, everything went well, no one was injured and all the aid was delivered, even the rosaries blessed by the Pope.
At the conclusion of the General Audience, Pope Francis asked everyone to be close in their thoughts and prayers to the “noble and martyred” people of Ukraine.
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