By Felix Anthony
Miao: The Catholic bishop of India’s remotest diocese has appealed children to pray for their counterparts in war-torn Ukraine.
Bishop George Pallipparambil of Miao made the appeal March 10 soon after Russian airstrikes hit a kindergarten in Dnipro city of Ukraine.
“I appeal to all our children in the diocese to pray the ‘Our Father, as many times as possible for the suffering children and families in Ukraine. Let us target 1 million. The Our Father has the greatest need of today,” the Salesian prelate said in a note addressed to all in the northeastern most corner of India.
He expressed deep sadness at the loss of lives of civilians, children and women amid “painful happenings in Ukraine.”
“What we are seeing and reading leaves us with a lump in our throat. Words fail us to express our pain and anguish. I suggest that we continue our prayer. “Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us as we forgive,” the prelate’s note prayed.
The bishop also invited all in the diocese to express their solidarity by ‘sparing something for these people who have lost everything and will be homeless for a long time.”
The women in the diocese also prayed for their Ukrainian counterpart on March 8 on the occasion of the International Women’s Day.
In the meantime, no breakthrough has come from the highest-level Ukraine-Russia meeting on March 9.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov reached no significant agreement at Antalya, Turkey, in the countries’ first cabinet-level meeting since the start of the invasion on February 24.