Rome, Italy, May 5, 2022 / 05:35 am
Within weeks of his arrival in Rome, the new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See encountered a Ukrainian mother who had given birth to her baby in a bomb shelter amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ambassador Joe Donnelly spoke in an interview published on May 5 about his “very emotional” meeting with Ukrainian families who found refuge in Italy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
During a visit to the refugee welcome center operated by the Catholic Community of Sant’Egidio, the ambassador said that one of the first families he met had an infant that was less than two months old.
“That baby had been born in a bomb shelter underneath the hospital, and the parents took off after the child had been born to come here to Italy on a one-month bus ride,” Donnelly said in an interview with Vatican News, the online news portal of the Holy See.