'They bomb, we sing': Papal almoner visits flooded Kherson in sixth Ukraine trip

By Paulina Guzik, OSV News

(OSV News) -- After driving more than 1,900 miles, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner, arrived in Kherson to show closeness to a community shattered by war and a devastating flood.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski started his visit to war-torn Ukraine June 25 "to assist those in need," he said -- his sixth trip to the country since the war began. The cardinal traveled south to Odessa June 26, followed by Mykolaiv and Kherson June 27 and 28.

"When we were here (in Odessa region) before, the front line was just at the city's borders, therefore we couldn't visit Mykolaiv during previous trips," Cardinal Krajewski said in a voice message sent to OSV News June 27. "Now we could visit the community; we left the rosaries from the Holy Father and material help," the cardinal said.

In one of the videos sent to OSV News from Mykolaiv, Cardinal Krajewski is seen with a local Catholic priest, Father Alexander Repin from the Society of Christ Fathers, who stayed in Mykolaiv with his flock throughout the Russian occupation and in difficult months after the city was liberated in November 2022.

"We couldn't come to you a year ago," the cardinal said in the video, "but you came to us to Odessa and I promised you that if only there is a possibility for me to come here, I will come, and here I am."

"Thank you for your perseverance and for your witness to the Gospel, for not leaving," Cardinal Krajewski told the priest.

Father Repin said in a video: "Thank you for the rosary from the Holy Father. That rosary is traveling between the parishes; every week we pass it to a different parish and we pray for peace on this papal rosary, and for the prompt ending of the war." Father Repin held a stack of pictures of Pope Francis in his hands.

Cardinal Krajewski, who is prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Service of Charity, told OSV News that he travels to Ukraine to show the pope’s closeness to Ukrainians, who have been fighting the Russian invasion since February 2022.

Upon arriving in Kherson June 27, the cardinal unloaded the truck full of medicine that he brought from the Vatican. "Doctors are immediately sorting the medicine and the ambulances are distributing it to places where they are most needed -- to hospitals and mobile medical points," he said in a voice message sent to OSV News.

On June 28 the cardinal visited parts of the city of Kherson that were flooded by the Kakhovka dam destruction June 6 -- which the cardinal called "the biggest tragedy that happened here since the start of the war."

The damage to the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in Kherson released some 4.3 cubic miles of water (a single cubic mile of water equals 1.1 trillion gallons) from the Kakhovka Reservoir, one of the world's largest capacity reservoirs. Dozens of towns and villages along the Dnipro River have been flooded, or approximately 230 square miles of the territory.

According to Caritas Internationalis, the disaster directly affected about 17,000 people, and an additional 700,000 people in the wider region also are potentially affected.

"However, it is not possible to estimate the exact picture because there is no official data on the situation in the temporarily occupied areas," Caritas said in a news release June 28.

Caritas Ukraine and Caritas-Spes Ukraine -- two branches of the church's charity organization in the country -- provided not only humanitarian aid but also psychological assistance to the local population "from the first minutes" of the disastrous flood, the organization highlighted.

"It's the people that paid the highest price" for the damage done to the dam, Cardinal Krajewski said.

On June 28, after the papal almoner distributed soup in Kherson, he later went to visit one of the Kherson area islands to help distribute water and food to volunteers helping to dry up the region, and to the local community.

In one of the videos sent to OSV News, Cardinal Krajewski is seen inside a house in Kharkiv damaged by the recent flood. Auxiliary Bishop Jan Sobilo of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia is accompanying the papal envoy throughout the trip, taking pictures and documenting the journey.

"This house was completely flooded, even the roof. This is a dramatic tragedy for the people that lived through the dam destruction," Bishop Sobilo said in a video showing Cardinal Krajewski in a house in which the belongings have been completely washed out by the flood waters.

The needs of the people in the region remain huge. In the first two weeks, Caritas Ukraine distributed 26,400 gallons of water to residents of about 30 settlements in Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv oblasts suffering from the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. Other assistance provided included 2,388 hygiene kits, 653 food packages, 640 power banks, nine generators, clothes and pumps for pumping out water.

Caritas-Spes Ukraine delivered more than 36.5 tons of food to the people in the flooded area, as well as 56 tons of water, more than 3.2 tons of hygiene products, 5.1 tons of clothes, bed linen, blankets and other aid. From June 12 to 18, Catholic parishes organized a collection to help the residents of the Kherson region. Over 21 tons of humanitarian aid were collected and distributed by Caritas-Spes. "Most people brought water, new bedding, mattresses, sleeping bags, generators and hygiene products," Caritas Internationalis said.

"My trip in the name of the pope places the Holy Father in the heart of the Gospel, because this is what Jesus has done from dawn to sunset: He assisted those in need," Cardinal Krajewski told OSV News.

On June 27, the cardinal visited wounded soldiers in the hospital as well as the Basilian community in Mykolaiv. In a video sent to OSV News, he is seen among the Basilian Fathers who are singing a traditional Ukrainian song to Mary.

"They bomb, we sing" he wrote in a message to OSV News, referring to constant bomb alerts in the region.

It is not known when Cardinal Krajewski will end his trip to Ukraine. According to Vatican News June 27, the papal envoy planned to visit Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, next and end his trip in Lviv before returning to the Vatican by way of his native Poland.