ROME — Ukrainian Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk condemned the ongoing use of sexual violence as a weapon of war against Ukrainian civilians in a video message Wednesday.
“The Lord God has given us sexuality in order to love,” but in these days, “we see that sexuality is not used for love, but for war,” Archbishop Shevchuk lamented. “Who would have imagined that sexuality could be turned into a weapon, a weapon of humiliating another weaker person, using sexuality as an instrument of violence?”
“We are now exposing horrific crimes, sexual violence as a weapon against civilians, innocent people. Hundreds of cases of the rape of women, men, and especially children,” he declared.
Citing a Tuesday report of the rape of an infant by a Russian soldier, the archbishop asked: “God, how can we remain human in the midst of that hell?”
“O God, bless our men and women! Bless our marriages! Bless those who, even during the war, cultivate conjugal love, fidelity, and the continuity of married life!” he prayed.
“Bless all those who, even during the war, are not afraid to have new children! O God, rescue all those who turn the gift of your sexuality into an instrument of war and sexual violence!” he added.
Along with the sexual violence, the archbishop decried the use of a new type of weapon, bombs dropped by parachutes “that did not explode immediately, but only when someone approached them.”
Moreover, he continued, the “Russian occupiers deliberately bombed and shelled civilian evacuation routes. This morning, a railway station in central Ukraine was smashed by rockets, that is, those junctions where we are trying to somehow help people get out of the battlefields.”
“People, ordinary people, are the target, the first target of those who are trying to kill Ukraine today,” he said.
As he has done on other occasions, Shevchuk heaped high praise on “the heroic popular resistance of the Ukrainian people against the Russian invader who is trampling our land.”
“Ukraine is standing. Ukraine is fighting. Ukraine amazes the world with its humane face,” he declared. “And Ukraine today, both at the front and with weapons in hand, and in the name of serving society through volunteering, serves life, saves lives, and builds peace.”
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