Pope Leo XIV addresses pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for recitation of the Angelus on Dec. 28, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Dec 28, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV has sent three trucks carrying humanitarian aid to parts of Ukraine hit hardest by bombardments, where residents are facing severe shortages of electricity, water, and heat.
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the pope’s almoner, disclosed the delivery to Vatican media on Dec. 27, saying the convoy carried special food that can be dissolved in a small amount of water to produce energy-rich soups with chicken and vegetables.
Krajewski described the shipment as a small gesture of closeness from the pope to Ukrainian families on the feast of the Holy Family, celebrated Dec. 28.
The trucks, he said, arrived in the Vatican shortly before Christmas loaded with supplies donated by South Korean food company Samyang Foods. As had happened on previous occasions, including during the pontificate of Pope Francis, the aid was then redirected to war zones most severely affected by strikes, where basic utilities are often unavailable.
Krajewski said the delivery underscores that the pope not only prays for peace but also wants to be concretely present with families who are suffering.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Vatican City, Apr 27, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- The homeless “risk paying the heaviest price” amid the coronavirus crisis, Pope Francis has said in a message to street newspapers.
In a statement dated April 21 but released by the Holy See press office April 27, the pope noted that the pandemic posed a dire threat to the more than 100 publications sold by the homeless worldwide.
Thousands of people depend for their livelihoods on the sale of street newspapers, he said.
“For many weeks the street newspapers have not been sold and their sellers cannot work,” he observed. “I want to express my closeness to journalists, volunteers, people who live thanks to these projects and who in these times are working with many innovative ideas.”
The pope expressed confidence that, despite the present difficulties, “the great network of street newspapers in the world will come back stronger than before.”
“Looking at the poorest people, in these days, can help us all to become aware of what is really happening to us and of our true condition,” he said.
“To all of you, [I offer] my message of encouragement and fraternal friendship. Thank you for the work you do, for the information you give and for the stories of hope you tell.”
This is not the first time that Pope Francis has shown his support for street newspapers. In 2015, he gave an interview to a representative of the Dutch paper Straatnieuws.
Straatnieuws is currently appealing for donations. A message on its website says: “The corona crisis has forced us to stop the distribution of Straatnieuws. So sellers are out of newspapers, out of income. We want to support them. For that, your donation is very much needed.”
The Big Issue, a street newspaper founded in the U.K. in 1991, has launched an appeal to support vendors and to ensure that the magazine weathers the pandemic.
StreetWise, a street magazine sold in Chicago since 1992, is seeking $300,000 to “sustain and subsidize” its vendors.
A statement on its website says: “With declining sales, our vendors need support now so they don’t lose their hotel rooms, single room occupancies or apartments and end up on the streets or in a shelter. And because many of them are in immunosuppressed conditions they could get very sick or even die.”
The website quoted Pete Kadens, StreetWise’s chairman emeritus, as saying: “This is literally the difference between life and death for our vendors and fellow Chicagoans — I cannot stress that enough.”
Pope Francis at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on April 20, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 23, 2022 / 09:40 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said on Saturday that “we must ask for the grace to cry” with Our Lady for the lives destroyed by the Ukraine war and the other miseries of our time, like “the children discarded before they are even born.”
In a meeting on April 23 with the Catholic community affiliated with the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Tears in northern Italy, the pope said that Mary’s tears are “a sign of God’s weeping for the victims of the war” in Ukraine.
Pope Francis underlined that the war is “destroying not only Ukraine,” but it is destroying “all the nations involved in the war.”
“Because war not only destroys the people who are defeated, no, it also destroys the victor … War destroys everyone,” he said in Paul VI Hall.
“We have entrusted our prayer to the Immaculate Heart, and we are certain that our Mother has accepted it and intercedes for peace, for she is the Queen of Peace,” the pope added.
In a speech to 2,800 pilgrims from Italian parishes close to the 16th century shrine of Our Lady of Tears in Treviglio, Italy, the pope said that “our civilization, our times, have lost the [Biblical] sense of weeping.”
Pope Francis speaks to 2,800 pilgrims from Italian parishes affiliated with the shrine of Our Lady of Tears in Treviglio, Italy on April 23, 2022. Vatican Media
He said: “We must ask for the grace to cry in front of the things we see … not only wars … but the discarded, the elderly who are discarded, the children discarded before they are even born.”
“The miseries of our time should make us cry and we need to cry. …We must allow ourselves to be moved,” he added.
Pope Francis said that “Mary’s tears” intercede and help those with hearts of stone who have forgotten how to cry.
“Mary’s tears were transformed by the grace of Christ, as her whole life, her whole being, everything in Mary is transfigured in perfect union with the Son, with his mystery of salvation. Therefore when Mary cries, her tears are a sign of God’s compassion,” the pope said.
“And for this reason Our Lady’s tears are a sign of the compassion of God, who always forgives us with this compassion; they are a sign of Christ’s pain for our sins, for the evil that afflicts humanity, especially the little ones and the innocent, who are those who suffer,” he said.
Pope Francis meets with members of the FIAT Association on April 23, 2022. Vatican Media
The pope also spoke about the war in Ukraine in a meeting with the FIAT Association on Saturday. The FIAT Association was founded by Belgian Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens in 1987.
“The tragedies we are experiencing at the moment, particularly the war in the territory of Ukraine so close to us, remind us of the urgency of a civilization of love. In the eyes of our brothers and sisters, victims of the horrors of war, we read the profound and pressing need for a life marked by dignity, peace and love,” Pope Francis told the group.
“Like the Virgin Mary, we must continually cultivate the missionary spirit to make ourselves close to those who suffer, opening our hearts to them. We must walk with them, fight with them for their human dignity and spread the perfume of God’s love everywhere.”
We are told by Pope Leo that Christians have no enemies. So why not send truckloads of humanitarian aid to Russia?