by Gianluigi Bugliermetto

Dear brother Leo, welcome!

You are one of us, a man in flesh and blood so you are entitled to a warm welcome. Just as on the day your mother gave you to the world, and today again because of the task to you entrusted. It must be indeed like a second or third birth to you.

Taking a new name is not a light choice to make and a person can only do that a few times in life. Most of us don’t even do it, although we hope you know that some do, for very good reasons, when entering a completely new life. Nuns do it (not all), monks do it (not all), transgender people do it (not all). Today, you are in deep communion with them all.

Friends,

My Dominican family in Ukraine continues to be a supportive and courageous presence to the Ukrainian people. Their latest letter to us quotes from the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World of the Second Vatican Council: “Peace is not merely the absence of war; nor can it be reduced solely to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies; nor is it brought about by dictatorship. Instead, it is rightly and appropriately called an enterprise of justice”

— Joseph Kilikevice, OP

Dear sisters, dear brothers,

“I am trying to remember how it was before the war. It is so hard,” said Father Misha when we ran into each other at the door of our warehouse filled with humanitarian supplies. He seemed to be surprised by his own emotions. It was a beautiful sunny day in Kherson with a chill in the air. Yet as we were unloading multiple tons of flour by hand, we couldn’t feel the cold. Similarly, we didn’t pay much attention to the repeated sound of distant explosions that we could hear from this frontline city of southern Ukraine. The flour we brought was for the bakery and kitchen which supply the people in need and are run by the House of Saint Martin de Porres. Every morning they make hundreds of loaves of bread. The bakery workers had quickly learned to bake the finest bread, rolls, and sweet pastries. We all do everything we can to make sure that what we hand out to the city’s citizens is of the highest quality.