On March 25, Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary during a penance service. Why?

Pope Francis has been invited to the besieged capital of Ukraine.

“In the name of God, I ask: Stop this massacre,” the pope said March 13 at the end of his Sunday Angelus address.

On the 17th day of the war in Ukraine, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, repeated Pope Francis’ call for “an immediate ceasefire” in Ukraine.

“The people who come are not dead in a technical sense, but they have lost their lives. And they don’t have a new one yet, so they are terribly beaten, and terribly vulnerable.”

Sister Lucía departed from Manresa at 6 a.m. on March 4 and arrived in Romania the following evening. On the morning of March 6, she set out on the return journey to Spain, bringing six refugees with her.