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The bishop of Kharkiv asks the Pope to come
A bishop from the epicenter of Ukraine's war walks out of an hour with Pope Leo XIV carrying one message home: you are not alone.
In brief
A bishop from the epicenter of Ukraine's war walks out of an hour with Pope Leo XIV carrying one message home: you are not alone. The people living under the shelling are not asking who wins. They are asking the world to keep seeing who is being killed. Originally reported by Vaticannews.
An hour in the Vatican
Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia left a private audience with Pope Leo XIV on Friday saying he was comforted by one promise: everything is being done to end the war.
“The Pope welcomed us with an open heart, and the entire audience was very warm.”
He came from the fire
Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia sit close to the Russian border, which makes them among the most heavily hit cities in Ukraine. Honcharuk calls Kharkiv a fire, the epicenter of the war.
Who was in the room
He brought a seminary rector who serves as a volunteer chaplain to a combat unit, a religious sister, and a psychologist. Two of them have worked with soldiers and bereaved families since 2014.
A blessing for the work
Everyone introduced themselves and asked the Pope to bless their service. Honcharuk thanked him for prayers, for pressing to free prisoners, and for helping bring deported children home.
“We received this blessing from the Holy Father not only for ourselves, but for all those who work to safeguard human lives.”
Come to Kharkiv
The bishop repeated his invitation for the Pope to visit Ukraine, and named the destination. A papal visit to the most shelled city in the country would be a sign his diocese could hold onto.
“It would be a great sign for us. In that case, I told him, he would have to come to Kharkiv.”
Proof they are not alone
Summer visits by Archbishop Paul Gallagher and Cardinal Matteo Zuppi told him the Holy See is spending everything it has. What matters most is that the world still names the victim and the aggressor.
“They are using their entire 'arsenal,' all the tools at their disposal, to promote this cause.”
A machine of death
Air raids continue without pause, one as recently as September 8. Civilians and warehouses are hit, children are dying, families lose their homes. He calls it an extermination of the Ukrainian people.
“It truly seems like an extermination of the people of Ukraine.”
This is not a football game
He dismisses the envoy shuttles, the Trump and Putin talks, the hints of compromise. War is not scored by who won. It ends, he says, when God's love reaches hearts hardened enough to start it.
“All wars begin when man is without a heart.”
The essence
The people living under the shelling are not asking who wins. They are asking the world to keep seeing who is being killed.
