Youngest cardinal calls for peace, justice in Ukraine as Church bids farewell to Pope Francis

Rome: The youngest cardinal in the Catholic Church has made a powerful plea for peace and justice in Ukraine, using the eve of Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican to draw global attention to the war still ravaging his homeland.

Mykola Bychok, the 44-year-old Ukrainian-Australian prelate based in Melbourne, spoke with emotional clarity in Rome just hours after Russia launched a deadly drone strikes on the city of Pavlohrad, killing three people, including a child, and injuring at least 14 others. A day earlier at least 14 people were killed and more than 80 others injured in the capital Kyiv, including children.

Australia-based cardinal Mykola Bychok in Rome on Friday.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

A shock appointment as a cardinal last December, Bychok said he’d personally spoken of the war with the late pontiff and had even asked Francis to pray for the 20,000 Ukrainian children taken by force to Russia since the war began.

“When I knelt before him, I asked him to help them,” he told reporters on Friday. “This is the future of our country.”

Francis came under fierce criticism at times for what was viewed as failure to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin during the three-year war and echoing Kremlin talking points by saying the war was “provoked” and portraying it as part of a wider global confrontation.

At the same time, Ukrainian officials have recognised the Vatican’s efforts in mediating prisoner exchanges and the return of children taken from occupied parts of Ukraine to Russia.

And while acknowledging criticisms that Francis’s approach to the war lacked political force, Bychok insisted the pope’s strength was pastoral, not geopolitical.

“What he offered was something uniquely Christian – a fatherly concern, and an unceasing call for peace. Not revenge, not desolation, but peace rooted in justice and reconciliation.

“In our darkest hours, he did not forget us. He prayed for peace. He wept with us ... He reminded the world not to grow indifferent.”

Bychok also shared that he had once ministered in Siberia to Ukrainians exiled under Soviet rule.

“I know Russia from inside,” he said. “I know we can say Russia from inside. I know not only how people are living in Moscow or St Petersburg, but I know how challenging life people experiences in Siberia,” he said.

“But ... I can say simply: they came to us. We did not go to them. We believe in peace, but we must name the aggressor.”

Bychok says Ukrainians, more than anyone, are people of hope.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

Born in the Ukrainian city of Ternopil, Bychok entered a monastery after high school and was ordained in Lviv. He served in Poland and the United States before moving to Melbourne in January 2020 to lead the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Saints Peter and Paul.

As the youngest cardinal and a representative of war-torn nation, he will cast a vote alongside about 135 others for the next leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics – a pope likely to guide the Church through continued conflict and crisis.

Asked how the war would shape his thinking, he was candid. “Yes, I am nervous. If you are not nervous, you are not human,” he said. “But I believe this responsibility is not mine alone. The Holy Spirit works through us. We are just instruments.”

The weight of that responsibility is all the heavier in the context of Bychok’s unexpected rise. A Redemptorist missionary by training, he is also just the eighth cardinal to be appointed from Australia.

“I was the happiest man in the world, simply preaching the Gospel,” he said. “I didn’t expect this. But I believe God has a mission, not just for me, but for all of us called by Pope Francis.”

That mission, he believes, is rooted in mercy and hope – two pillars of Francis’ papacy that will echo into the future. “To lose hope is to lose everything,” Bychok said. “And Ukrainians, more than anyone, are people of hope.”

But it is Ukraine that remains at the centre of his heart – and the heart of his witness in Rome.

“You should remember at the beginning of the war, 99 diplomats, ambassadors left Ukraine They thought it would fall in three days. But three years later, we are still standing. We are still praying. And we still believe ... and you know the story about David and Goliath.”

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.