On the Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March, Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The Vatican announced on Tuesday that the consecration would follow the celebration of penance at St Peter’s, with Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, accomplishing the same act in Fatima.
Ukraine’s Roman Rite bishops wrote to the Pope on Ash Wednesday, as Catholics prayed and fasted for peace, asking for the consecration “as requested by the Blessed Virgin in Fatima”.
The Marian apparitions at Fatima during the First World War included three “secrets”, revealed to the shepherd children who first witnessed them: the second was for the consecration of Russia to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.
Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv will lead a novena before the ceremony, beginning on 17 March.
Cardinal Krajewski returned from Ukraine on Saturday, where he said he had brought the “weapons of faith”. He praised the work of volunteers providing relief, and said that “besides the suffering, there is great hope and love”.
Alongside Cardinal Krajewski’s visit to Ukraine, Cardinal Michael Czerny has been visiting refugees on its Hungarian border, and announced that he would visit the Slovakian border this week. On Monday, Pope Francis met the Slovakian prime minister, Eduard Heger, and discussed the plight of the 200,000 refugees who have entered his country since 24 February.
The Vatican also confirmed that the mayor of Kyiv has formally invited Pope Francis to visit the Ukrainian capital, in a letter leaked to the press shortly before he announced a curfew.
In the letter, Vitali Klitshko, mayor since 2014, said that the Pope’s “presence in person in Kyiv is key for saving lives and paving the path to peace”. If this proved impossible, he continued, he requested a joint video conference with President Zelenskiy.
Pope Francis is said to have expressed interest in visiting Ukraine in the past, where he is recognised as “the most important moral authority in the world today” according to Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
These sentiments were echoed by the Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia, in an interview on Monday. Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the Ukrainian Church’s unofficial “foreign minister”, condemned western leaders’ “naïveté, blindness, lack of courage and capacity to act” and said that he thought the Pope should “go to Ukraine right now”.
“I think it would save many lives. His unique moral authority could play a role,” he told CNS.
Earlier this month, Mr Klitshko called on religious leaders “to take a stand and assume the moral function that is incumbent upon them” by condemning the war in Ukraine, where “the dignity of man is being called into question”.