Day: March 26, 2026

Russian drone strikes damage historic church, monastery in Lviv ahead of Holy Week #Catholic –

LVIV, Ukraine (OSV News) — A historic Bernardine monastery complex and the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in the western Ukraine city of Lviv were hit by aerial drone strikes March 24, just ahead of the observance of Holy Week.

They are the newest sacred space casualties of Russian attacks and part of what is described by officials as the largest attack in a single 24-hour period since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Local authorities confirmed that historic apartment buildings near the 16th-century Bernardine monastery — part of the city’s historic center listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site — were struck and caught fire and the tower of the monastery also experienced damage.

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene also was damaged during the aerial strike, with windows broken and glass shattered around the church floor March 24, as shown in a video shared by Vatican News.

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“Thank God … it happened in the afternoon,” Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv told Vatican News. “People were still at work, children had not yet returned from school, and there were no fatalities. There are only injured people,” he emphasized.

As Russia fired almost 400 long-range drones on the war-torn country overnight, six people were killed and 46 injured, The Associated Press reported, citing Ukrainian officials.

Elsewhere, in the neighboring Ivano-Frankivsk region, a maternity hospital was hit.

In a March 25 statement, UNESCO said it was “deeply alarmed” by the strikes, noting that “cultural property is protected under the 1954 Hague Convention and the 1972 World Heritage Convention.”

The agency added it “stands ready to support the authorities with assessments, protection measures and emergency assistance.”

In a March 24 Facebook post, Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv — located just over a mile from the site of the attack — recapped the impact of the strikes across the nation, adding, “We express our condolences to all the victims. Eternal memory to the innocently killed.”

“The attack by ‘shaheeds’ in Lviv shows that the enemy chooses densely located residential buildings,” the university said in the post, referring to Iranian-designed Shahed drones.

According to the BBC, in his video address on March 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the scale of the latest attacks “clearly shows that Russia has no intention of really ending this war.”

Russia’s military has not publicly commented on the attacks.

Archbishop Mokrzycki said that the war, now in its fifth year, is taking a heavy toll among Ukrainians, used to aerial alarms and mourning large numbers of killed soldiers daily in cities across Ukraine.

“This war is also ongoing on another front,” Archbishop Mokrzycki told the Polish section of Vatican News. He pointed out the experience of war affects residents not only during moments of attacks, but also in everyday life, marked by loss and uncertainty.

– LVIV, Ukraine (OSV News) — A historic Bernardine monastery complex and the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in the western Ukraine city of Lviv were hit by aerial drone strikes March 24, just ahead of the observance of Holy Week. They are the newest sacred space casualties of Russian attacks and part of what is described by officials as the largest attack in a single 24-hour period since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Local authorities confirmed that historic apartment buildings near the 16th-century Bernardine monastery — part of the city’s historic center listed as a UNESCO World Heritage

National Eucharistic Pilgrimage seeks to be a sacred journey for US at 250 years #Catholic –

(OSV News) — The upcoming National Eucharistic Pilgrimage — which takes place as the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026 — marks a moment for “a country still in conversion,” and “a country still on pilgrimage,” said Jason Shanks, president of the National Eucharistic Congress organization.

Shanks joined pilgrimage organizers, along with several of its nine perpetual pilgrims, for an online March 25 press conference announcing further details of the event, which takes place May 24 through July 5.

With a theme of “One Nation Under God,” the route will run from Florida to Maine, spanning more than 2,200 miles in most of the nation’s 13 original colonies. Over the course of 43 days, pilgrims will travel through 18 dioceses and archdioceses, as well as two Eastern Catholic eparchies.

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Nine perpetual pilgrims will accompany the Blessed Sacrament, with public events — including Masses, Holy Hours, sacred music concerts, talks and charitable outreach — taking place along the way.

Pilgrimage organizers are inviting the faithful to participate in a spiritual bouquet of 250,000 Holy Hours, with a signup form available on the pilgrimage website, eucharisticpilgrimage.org/one-nation-under-god.

The spiritual bouquet will be presented in the nation’s capital as a sign of “prayers for peace in our world, for unity and peace in our country, and for God’s hand to continue to guide all of those in the United States,” said Shanks.

The 2026 pilgrimage, which continues the 2024 and 2025 journeys undertaken as part of the National Eucharistic Revival, has been placed under the patronage of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the woman religious and Italian immigrant who became the first U.S. citizen to be canonized after a lifetime of work ministering to immigrants.

Along with Mother Cabrini, other holy men and women who will be commemorated throughout the pilgrimage are St. Katharine Drexel, the Philadelphia banking heiress who founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and served Black American and American Indian communities; St. John Neumann, the Bavarian-born Redemptorist who as bishop of Philadelphia established the nation’s parochial school system, as well as the Forty Hours devotion; and the soon-to-be-beatified Georgia Martyrs, six Spanish Franciscans who were slain while missioning to the Indigenous Guale people in the late 16th century.

The stops along the Cabrini Route will highlight sites significant to Catholicism’s contributions to U.S. history, said Shanks.

“Before there was a Constitution, there was a consecration,” he said, pointing to Masses celebrated on the territory of what would later become the U.S.

Historians have cited a number of such liturgies, including Masses reported to have taken place in 1541 in the future states of Kansas and Texas, and the Sept. 8, 1565, liturgy celebrated by Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales at the site of present-day St. Augustine, Florida.

In 1664, the London-born Jesuit Father Andrew White celebrated Mass in the Maryland colony.

“We’re excited to unite our country in memory of its history and to sort of explore the Catholic contribution to this American experiment,” Shanks said.

Among the pilgrimage events honoring the nation’s development will be a Eucharistic procession through historical Williamsburg, Virginia; a blessing from Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River in Washington, with a procession past national landmarks in the capital; Eucharistic adoration in Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Plymouth, Massachusetts; and a crossing of the Delaware River into New Jersey — a nod to George Washington, who led 2,500 Continental Army troops across the body of water on Christmas night in 1776, surprising enemy Hessian troops, mercenaries of the British empire, and securing major U.S. victories in the Revolutionary War.

The pilgrimage concludes with Mass and a Eucharistic procession over the July 4 holiday weekend in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and which served as the nation’s capital from 1790 to 1800, when the new city of Washington became the nation’s seat of government.

Pilgrim Zachary Dotson said at the press conference that “the real beauty” of the theme “One Nation Under God” lies in “the great humility that it takes to truly believe that and follow that.”

“There’s nothing more healing than God’s divine mercy and love, which is open and available to all people,” he said.

Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.

– (OSV News) — The upcoming National Eucharistic Pilgrimage — which takes place as the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026 — marks a moment for “a country still in conversion,” and “a country still on pilgrimage,” said Jason Shanks, president of the National Eucharistic Congress organization. Shanks joined pilgrimage organizers, along with several of its nine perpetual pilgrims, for an online March 25 press conference announcing further details of the event, which takes place May 24 through July 5. With a theme of “One Nation Under God,” the route will run from Florida to Maine, spanning more than 2,200

Life must be defended in a world wounded by warfare, pope says #Catholic –

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The sanctity of life, from conception to its natural end, must be defended, especially now, in a world marked by “the madness of war,” Pope Leo XIV said.

When greeting Polish-speaking visitors during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square March 25, Pope Leo highlighted Poland’s pro-life celebration during his greetings, saying initiatives such as their “Spiritual Adoption of a Conceived Child” were truly needed.

“In a time marked by the madness of war, it is important to defend life from conception to its natural end,” he said.

Poland celebrates the Day of the Sanctity of Life every March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, which falls nine months before the Lord’s birth Christmas Day and celebrates Jesus’ incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

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Similar prayer initiatives exist around the world, including in the United States. The late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who is set to be beatified Sept. 24 in St. Louis, also inspired a spiritual adoption program, in which participants pledge to pray daily for nine months for an unborn child whose mother is considering abortion.

Sometimes “spiritual parents” are encouraged to name the unborn child and to pray for him or her daily, and, at the end of nine months, hold a baby shower to collect supplies and money to donate to local pregnancy centers.

Marking the feast of the Annunciation, Pope Leo invited Catholics to follow the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary more closely and to “always be ready to do God’s will.”

“As we continue our Lenten journey, let us ask the Lord to grant us the grace to imitate Our Blessed Mother in her total ‘yes’ to the Lord, and so open our hearts to his will for our lives,” he told English-speaking pilgrims and visitors.

In his main catechesis, the pope continued his series of reflections on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, specifically, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, “Lumen Gentium.”

Pope Leo explained that the hierarchical structure of the Church is not a “human construct” for fulfilling some kind of organizational function, but is “a divine institution whose purpose is to perpetuate the mission given by Christ to the apostles until the end of time.”

The Catholic Church, he said, is “founded on the apostles, whom Christ appointed as the living pillars of his mystical body, and possesses a hierarchical structure that works in the service of the unity, mission and sanctification of all her members.”

Since the apostles are called to faithfully preserve Christ’s “salvific teaching, they hand on their ministry to men who, until Christ’s return, continue to sanctify, guide and instruct the Church ‘through their successors in pastoral office,’” he said.

While all the faithful make up “the one priesthood of Christ,” he said, those ordained ministers who have received the Sacrament of Holy Orders, that is, bishops, priests and deacons, do have a unique ministry.

Endowed with “sacred power” for service in the Church, the bishops, “first and foremost, and through them the priests and deacons, have received tasks (‘munera’ in Latin), which lead them to the service of ‘all those who belong to the People of God,’so that, ‘working toward a common goal freely and in an orderly way, [they] may arrive at salvation,’” the pope said, citing the council document.

This apostolic mission is “collegial and communal,” reflecting the Lord’s desire for “shepherds of His people” who serve with love, he said. That is why St. Paul VI presented the hierarchy as being “born of the charity of Christ, to fulfil, spread and ensure the intact and fruitful transmission of the wealth of faith, examples, precepts and charisms bequeathed by Christ to His Church.”

“Dear sisters and dear brothers, let us pray to the Lord that He may send to His Church ministers who are ardent with evangelical charity, dedicated to the good of all the baptized, and courageous missionaries in every part of the world,” Pope Leo said.

– VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The sanctity of life, from conception to its natural end, must be defended, especially now, in a world marked by “the madness of war,” Pope Leo XIV said. When greeting Polish-speaking visitors during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square March 25, Pope Leo highlighted Poland’s pro-life celebration during his greetings, saying initiatives such as their “Spiritual Adoption of a Conceived Child” were truly needed. “In a time marked by the madness of war, it is important to defend life from conception to its natural end,” he said. Poland celebrates the Day of the Sanctity of