Pope Leo XIV asked to join the world prayer for the “martyred country” of Ukraine, suffering from war for more than three years; and asked not to forget the dramatic situation of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique.
“Last Friday, August 22, we accompany our prayer and our fasting brothers and sisters who suffer from wars,” recalled the Holy Father after the angel’s prayer this Sunday in the Vatican.
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“Today we join our Ukrainian brothers who, with a spiritual initiative and a world prayer for Ukraine, ask the Lord to grant peace to his martyred country,” he encouraged.
Ukraine celebrates its national holiday on August 24. Within that framework and after the conversations between Donald Trump, president of the United States, with Vladimir Putin in Alaska; And then with the Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski and other European leaders in Washington, the initiative “a world prayer for Ukraine” was launched for today.
He website Created with that objective, supported by Zelenski, the Panucranian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, indicates that some 700 places of worship of various confessions have been destroyed or damaged as a consequence of military action and “more than 70 Ukrainian pastors and priests have been killed by Russian troops.”
Within that framework, the initiative invites you to pray “for the protection, healing and victory of light.”
Do not forget Cabo Delgado in Mozambique
“Dear brothers and sisters, I express my closeness to the people of Cabo Delgado, in Mozambique, victim of a situation of insecurity and violence that continues to cause frightful deaths,” said Pope Leo XIV in his words this Sunday.
“While I call so that we do not forget these brothers and sisters, I invite you to pray for them and express the hope that the efforts of those responsible for the country will restore security and peace in that territory,” he said.
Since 2017, the province of Cabo Delgado, in Mozambique, suffers jihadist attacks that have left more than 5,000 dead and more than one million displaced people who need humanitarian aid.
In recent weeks, attacks have intensified, especially in the districts of Chiure and Metuge. Although the situation has been forgotten by the international community, the Pope recalled it today.
Recently, he points out Vatican NewsFr. Fonseca Kwiriwi, from the Diocese of Pmba, presented the horrors in the region, including the kidnapping of children perpetrated by the Shabab group to turn them into soldiers.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.