Towards a future of hope

“A very young or very old Church, in which the intermediate age group is lacking and it is for the most part the young who introduce their parents to religion”: that is how the Catholic Church of Latin rite in Ukraine is described by Father PAVLO VYSHKOVSKYY (oblates of Mary Immaculate), who works at the apostolic nunciature in the former Soviet republic. “In my country – explains the young priest to SIR, expressing his concerns about the existing political situation and the risk of civil war – out of 48 million inhabitants, over 25 million declare themselves atheist; of the others the majority are Orthodox, while members of the sects run into several thousands”. “Catholics of Latin rite, of whom there were 10 million before the Communist regime, are now less than a million. There are over 870 parishes, and some 5 million Catholics of Byzantine rite”. There are three Latin-rite diocesan seminaries. The largest is at Horodok (Kamyanets-Podiskyy), where some 70 seminarians are currently studying; there are 40 seminarians at the one in Lvov and 32 at the seminary in Kiev. Some 100 youth are also studying in religious seminaries. PROCLAIMING CHRIST. “In the town of Obutkhiv 40 km from Kiev, where I live – continues Father Pavlo -, we arrived eight years ago, registering ourselves as the 37th religion; so there were already 36, including many sects”. “How is it possible to proclaim Christ to those who don’t believe and who have been used to living without God for decades?”: that, according to Father Pavlo, is the main difficulty. But another difficulty is that of the accusations made by the Orthodox Church, which “imputes to the Catholic Church the creation of sects to deprive it of faithful”. “Our main commitment – explains the priest – consists in understanding how to reach people and how to help the faithful to grow in the faith. It’s not enough for people to go to church; it’s important that they practice the faith in their lives and bear witness to it to others”. The methods used to this end include: “a weekly programme of catechesis, religious cine-forums and a Catholic review for adults, a children’s magazine”, and the purchase of a slot, “once each week, on national radio to broadcast a programme of religious formation called Credo, which registers high audience figures”. “Through a press agency – he concludes – we publish news via internet three times per week”. CHURCHES . Another important question, according to Father Pavlo, is that of the return of cult buildings expropriated during the Communist regime. “At Kiev, 4 million inhabitants, there is just one Latin-rite Catholic church – he explains -, apart from five small wooden chapels to shelter the faithful from the cold and the rain. The cathedral of St. Nicholas has not yet been restored to us; the government uses it as a concert hall. We can have it, on payment, for one hour on Sundays for the celebration of mass, in which some 1200 faithful take part. Over the last nine years not one church has been restored to us”, explains the priest, according to whom “several thousand churches have either been destroyed or were used by the Communist regime as museums of atheism or stables”. That’s why, “in recent weeks the archbishop of Lvov and president of the Ukrainian Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Marian Jaworski, together with other bishops met with Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko, who promised to set up a special commission to examine the problem”. YOUTH . “On Palm Sunday and World Youth Day – continues Father padre Pavlo -, our multi-media Catholic centre organized a three-day meeting in the diocese of Kiev-Zhytomys on the theme “Living with a pure heart”, to educate the young in pre-marital chastity. The number of participants – 1,500 – shows just how many young people are searching for God in my country. Communism caused great harm: when I went to school the obligatory greeting was: ‘God doesn’t exist’, to which the obligatory reply was ‘And never shall’. The forced imposition of a life without God has had grave consequences: a consumerist lifestyle and a false idea of freedom. Today 90% of families are broken; drug and alcohol abuse are endemic; and a child is killed through abortion every two minutes. But now the young come to us if they have problems: adolescents who, during their military service in Chechnya, were driven to drugs and alcohol to overcome their resistance to using firearms now ask for help from Caritas”. TWO HOPES . What hopes does Father Pavlo have? “First, I hope that the Church will receive the juridical recognition for which it has been waiting for years, and second that its churches be restored to it”. The aspiration to unity is also strong in him: “I don’t think there is another country that is so divided as ours: four Orthodox Churches, two Catholic Churches that do not work together, and countless sects. It’s a disunity that is also reflected in the family, in society and in political life”.