Several Catholic aid organizations say they remain “united in hope” for Ukraine, as Russia’s war in the country continues in its fifth year.
Such commitment to support Ukraine reflects an awareness that “we are brothers and sisters in Christ,” said Jennifer Healy, staff director for the USCCB Subcommittee on the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, which holds an annual collection among U.S. dioceses.
Ms. Healy, who also serves as associate director for the USCCB’s national collections office, joined several speakers and participants at a briefing on Catholic efforts to assist Ukraine at the New York headquarters of Catholic Near East Welfare Association 4 May. The pontifical agency, in its centennial year, provides humanitarian and pastoral support to the churches and peoples of the Middle East, Northeast Africa, India and Eastern Europe.
The Knights of Columbus joined CNEWA and the USCCB subcommittee in sponsoring the event, which featured an update on the situation in Ukraine by Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, who was guest of honor at CNEWA’s December Gala.
The gathering was preceded by Mass at the nearby Church of Our Savior, at which Bishop Gerald L. Vincke of Salina, Kansas — who chairs the USCCB Subcommittee on Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe — served as the principal celebrant.
In his opening prayer at the subsequent briefing, Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari, CNEWA president, prayed for those killed by Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, launched in 2014 and accelerated by a 2022 full-scale invasion.
Msgr. Vaccari also interceded for “a stronger resolve” to be God’s “agents of healing and hope to those who have been wounded, trafficked, abandoned, deprived of clean water, medicine and education; to those who have been stripped of their basic human dignity.”
Thomas Varghese, CNEWA’s director of programs, told those in attendance and nearly 600 people who attended virtually that the agency had been involved on the ground in Ukraine for decades, but involvement intensified after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
That aid “has been ongoing” since CNEWA was founded in 1926, with the agency initially helping Ukrainian refugees in Europe and Istanbul, and later ministering to the Ukrainian diaspora in Argentina and Brazil, according to Michael J. La Civita, CNEWA’s communications and marketing director.
Following Ukraine’s independence from the former Soviet Union, he said, CNEWA “worked closely with the restored leadership of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church” — which had been liquidated by the Soviet regime — and was instrumental in helping to establish the church’s Three Holy Hierarchs Seminary in Kyiv and the academy that ultimately became Ukrainian Catholic University, of which Archbishop Gudziak is president.
Mr. Varghese said that CNEWA has collaborated closely with the Knights of Columbus, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and Caritas Ukraine, part of the universal Catholic Church’s global humanitarian network. Mr. La Civita later confirmed to OSV News that between 24 February 2022, and 31 December 2025, CNEWA sent more than $9.7 million in emergency relief to church-led efforts, addressing an array of humanitarian and pastoral needs in Ukraine amid the war.
The funds have enabled pastoral care — including seminarian and clergy development — as well as emergency aid and care for vulnerable people, particularly children, the elderly and those with disabilities, said Mr. Varghese.
Ms. Healy said that since February 2022 her office has been able to provide “$9.4 million for 338 war relief projects in Ukraine and the surrounding countries who are taking care of the refugees.”
Mr. Varghese stressed that the loss of funds from the now-shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development “poses a significant risk” to Ukraine’s humanitarian support system, while potentially increasing the burden on CNEWA, the USCCB, the Knights of Columbus and other Catholic agencies.
But that is a burden they are willing to bear, said Szymon Czyszek, director of international growth in Europe for the Knights of Columbus.
Mr. Czyszek said that to date the Knights have raised over $24 million from more than 68,000 donors.
“And there are still people willing to donate, because they see the work that the Knights and the Catholic Church are doing in Ukraine,” he added.
The Knights count more than 3,000 members in Ukraine and are “part of the fabric of the communities” across that nation, he added.
As a result, he said, the organization was “able to help more than 2 million Ukrainian people,” distributing “more than 10 million pounds of supplies,” while sponsoring “more than 350,000 care packages” and handing out “more than 60,000 rosaries.”
In his update, Archbishop Gudziak — who has traveled to Ukraine 55 times since 2014, with trips to areas within a few miles of the front lines — emphasized the gratitude of Ukrainians for U.S. support.
“Every time, they say, ‘Please thank the people that pray, inform, act and help,’ ” he said.
The archbishop said that, amid the Ukrainian people’s “great exhaustion” and “great loss,” not one person has expressed to him a desire to give up. He said by the end of 2025, Ukraine had an estimated $667 billion of economic and social damage.
He pointed to the 4 million people displaced internally in Ukraine due to the current war, noting that the nation has not needed to establish refugee camps since “people are helping people” and “the poor are helping the destitute.”
During the presentation, the archbishop showed slides with statistics, but also with images of young people from Ukrainian Catholic University killed in the war.
He said someone might ask why people are willing to make sacrifices to serve, adding, “It’s basically a question of freedom.”
“People understand that sometimes freedom is not free, and sometimes you have to pay a great price for it.”
“War is the conglomeration of all sins,” he added. “It begins with a lie, it starts with violence, it proceeds to war crimes.”
The fight is also for religious freedom, he said, pointing to Russia’s historic persecution of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church over the past 300 years.
“Every time there is a Russian occupation on any part of Ukrainian territory, the Ukrainian [Greek] Catholic Church is outlawed,” said Archbishop Gudziak.
“And so, they resist, and they are grateful for the support,” he said.
Describing Catholic aid to Ukraine as “steadfast,” Archbishop Gudziak added that the support provided “has been heart to heart, person to person, community to community” and “church to church.”
Barb Fraze provided additional reporting. To support CNEWA’s efforts in Ukraine, visit Stand Strong with Ukraine.