Pope to Ukrainian youth: Remember your heroes, forgive your enemies

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Forgiving others is never easy, and it is even more difficult in a situation of war, but it is essential, Pope Francis told Ukrainian young adults.

“One of the hardest things is to forgive, and this is difficult for everyone, even me,” the pope said during a video call Feb. 1 with about 250 young people gathered in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Resurrection in Kyiv, as well as in Lutsk and Donetsk in Ukraine and in Warsaw, Munich, London, Chicago and Toronto.

Pope Francis told the young adults that what helps him pardon someone is remembering, “I must forgive as I have been forgiven. Each one of us must look in our own life for how we have been forgiven.”

“Forgiveness is very difficult. We always try to wage war and respond to a punch with another punch,” he said, according to Vatican News. But to build a future of peace, “we have to forgive each other. Always.”

Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, the Vatican nuncio to Ukraine, organized the online meeting. Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, hosted the gathering, and Auxiliary Bishop Jan Sobilo of the Latin-rite Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia joined him.

Introducing the meeting, Archbishop Shevchuk told Pope Francis that if the air raid sirens went off, they would have to interrupt the gathering and go to an underground shelter.

“It’s a miracle that we have light and electricity,” he told the pope. “Last night there was another attack,” but the electricity and internet had been restored.

The archbishop thanked Pope Francis for the encounter and for proclaiming the Holy Year 2025 as a jubilee of hope.

“In Ukraine, hope has many faces,” the archbishop said. In particular, “hope has the face of young Ukrainian women and men who, despite the challenges of war, know how to love God and their neighbor.”

The gathering began with prayer and the testimonies of three young Ukrainians, including one living in Chicago, who told Pope Francis about the deaths and disruptions they and their families have experienced since Russia launched its large-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022.

A young woman from the Donetsk region in Eastern Ukraine, which Russian troops invaded in 2014, told Pope Francis that she and her peers want peace, “a just and lasting peace that will let us go back to our cities and our dreams.”

“We believe that good is stronger than evil,” she told the pope.

Pope Francis sat at a desk in his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, taking notes on what the young people said and the questions he invited them to ask. He was assisted by a Franciscan friar serving as his translator.

Iliana Dobra, a 21-year-old teacher from Uzhhorod, asked the pope, “Is it worth dying for one’s country? How can we nourish our faith in defense of life when life itself is being devalued across the world?”

Pope Francis responded that life is being “devalued” everywhere and that too often money and making war take priority.

He told the young people that they should love their country and be patriotic, especially by remembering their peers who have given their lives in defense of Ukraine.

Pope Francis held up a camouflage-covered pocket edition of the New Testament and Psalms and a small fabric pouch containing a rosary that he has had for more than a year. They belonged to 23-year-old Oleksandr, a Ukrainian soldier killed at Avdiivka. One of the things Oleksandr underlined was Psalm 129 (130): “Out of the depths I call to you, Lord; Lord, hear my cry.”

The pope said he considered the Bible and rosary relics of a young man “who gave his life for peace. I have this on my desk, and every day I pray.”

“We must remember these heroes of ours who defended the nation,” he said.

Yulia, 27, told the pope that “entire cities have been destroy by enemy bullets and rockets. There is a genocide of our people. How can we see (the way to) peace in all of this?”

War “always destroys,” the pope said. “It is terrible. One of the most horrible things is war.”

The only way forward, he said, is dialogue.

“Dialogue always, dialogue among us, even with those who are against us,” he said. “Please, never tire of dialogue. Peace is built through dialogue. It is true that sometimes it is not possible, because of the stubbornness of some, but always make the effort.”

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