Following the rector’s appeal, Catholic universities around the world expressed support by sending personal letters to the Ukrainian Catholic University. The institutions included the University of Notre Dame, St. Patrick’s College Maynooth in Ireland, the Catholic University in Ružomberok, Slovakia, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt in Germany.
The Catholic Universities Partnership also issued a statement condemning “the invasion as a gross violation of international law and as a disrespect of standards of decent human morality.”
Sophia Opatska, the founding dean of the Ukrainian Catholic University’s business school, recorded a video with suggestions on how businesses and citizens of other countries can support Ukraine.
Opatska recommended that business organizations “stop all relations with Russian businesses and companies,” particularly cutting off Russia from SWIFT payments.
She also encouraged people to put pressure on governments to enact a no-fly zone over Ukraine to protect civilians from Russian jets, drones, and missiles.
Myroslav Marynovych, the vice-rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, was a recipient of the Napa Institute’s Charles J. Chaput Award. He spent seven years in a Soviet gulag in the Perm region of Russia from 1977 to 1984.
In an interview with CNA in 2018, Marynovych said that in the labor camp he learned “what ‘love your enemy’ really means.”
Marynovych was among 120 signatories on an appeal to the president of the Council of the European Union on Feb. 19 calling for immediate “negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, with the aim of its full integration within 10 years.”
Pope Francis has appealed for a worldwide day of prayer and fasting for peace on Ash Wednesday, March 2.
“This war has been going on for the last eight years, but today, Ukraine and the whole world face the greatest danger since 2014,” Prach said.
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.