Archbishop shows solidarity with Ukraine: 'We are with you'

Archbishop Charles Scicluna expressed solidarity with Ukraine as the war carried on into its seventh day.

“I would like to say a word to our friends from Ukraine. I can’t speak your language, but there is one language which is the language of brotherhood and love. We are with you, and we will do whatever it takes to support you. You are not alone. May peace prevails,” the Archbishop said during a homily celebrating Ash Wednesday at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

Scicluna called on the Catholic world to make Ash Wednesday a day of prayer and fasting for peace in Ukraine, adding that Malta knows too well what it means to be the victim of invasion.

The archbishop said that although Malta is far away from the bloody conflict in Ukraine, “we must respond with solidarity and reconciliation.”

Scicluna also pointed out that millions of people are victims of conflict all over the world, including Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia.

“For those who love peace, and here the Pope quotes the Italian Constitution, ‘war must be repudiated as an instrument of offence to the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolving international disputes.’ War is not the answer to conflicts,” he said.

President of Malta George Vella also attended the mass.