The Knights of Columbus show the way.
The Knights of Columbus show the way.
Nashville, Tenn. — “We don’t have refugee camps in Poland,” Szymon Czyszek explains. Instead, Poles have welcomed Ukrainians into their private homes, despite often speaking different languages. Czyszek is in the United States for the Knights of Columbus annual convention, giving testimony to what the Knights have seen and done in Poland and Ukraine to help innocent victims of the Russian war on the Ukrainian people. He remembers a mother who had with her the eight-day-old infant she had just delivered. She walked five days in freezing temperatures during “a time that should be filled with joy and hope, and she had to flee.” He says “these stories never end,” of people surmounting physically and mentally rigorous challenges.
Czyszek is with the Knights of Columbus in Poland. From the beginning of the war until the end of May, the Knights have served more than 300,000 at the Ukrainian border — at least 10 percent of those who have fled.
For Czyszek, the war in Ukraine is about not foreign headlines but real men and women and children: “For us to prevail it is essential that we are spiritually and morally stronger than our enemies.”
At the same time, people need food and water and roofs and jobs. To be able to meet some of these needs, the Knights launched a Ukrainian relief fund earlier this year. They have raised $19 million as I write. Half of the contributions have come from nonmembers, in response to appeals including media appearances by Czyszek. There’s no overhead, all the money goes to the efforts on the ground. “With the support we’ve received we’re able to respond very effectively to the needs of the people of Ukraine,” Czyszek says.
Yuriy Maletskiy is the head of the Knights in Ukraine. He’s a CEO, but now he’s a soldier of mercy. His instinct was to join the fighting, but Czyszek convinced him he had another role to play. With Czyszek and Maletskiy in the lead, the Knights of Columbus have been able to make their name synonymous with charity for Ukrainians on both sides of the border, regardless of religion. The Knights are Roman Catholic, but they tell me about Orthodox priests who want to start chapters, so grateful are they for their living of the Christian call to radical generosity. “We don’t know when the war will be over, but what we do know is that the Knights will be in Ukraine for the long haul.” While there has been drop-off with other organizations as the war has continued, their presence has increased. The Knights have had a presence in Ukraine for a decade. So often “when someone calls you, needing food or other resources, “it’s not a stranger, it’s a brother, and that’s why it’s impossible to be indifferent.”
The Knights are helping not only those who cross the border. They’ve been able to relocate orphanages and, when they realized that they hadn’t seen many disabled people, Knights went door to door to find them — in many cases they had been abandoned in the exodus.
I spent a few weeks with Czyszek in 2016 when he led the Knights in helping to organize Pope Francis’s visit for World Youth Day in Kraków. Little did they know that the organizational structures and networks of Knights they put in place would be to help their neighbors in Ukraine as Russia continues to destroy civilian and industrial targets.
At one of the papal events I attended that summer, Pope Francis raised the question we often ask when evil is running rampant: “Where is God?” He offered the Beatitudes as the action items for combating evil and making God’s presence seen. Humanity today needs men and women who do not wish to live their lives “halfway.” He said we need people, especially young people, “ready to spend their lives freely in service to those of their brothers and sisters who are poorest and most vulnerable, in imitation of Christ, who gave himself completely for our salvation.”
He added:
In the face of evil, suffering, and sin, the only response possible for a disciple of Jesus is the gift of self, even of one’s own life, in imitation of Christ; it is the attitude of service. Unless those who call themselves Christians live to serve, their lives serve no good purpose. By their lives, they deny Jesus Christ.
Serving is exactly what the Knights in Poland and Ukraine are doing. In the face of suffering, they rise to the occasion in love and invite others to join them. As the war doesn’t command the same attention internationally that it previously did, they are reaching out to experts in mental health and other arenas to help meet the increased needs of a war-ravaged people. There are at least two Ukrainian Knights who have been killed in the war. Maletskiy is an able-bodied man who may yet find himself conscripted one way or another in the war. But for now, the Knights are responding with humanitarian efforts in the present while also looking ahead, even while he is realistic about the decimation of the Ukrainian economy. When I ask how much money they will need once the war is over, he again talks about the devastation Russia has inflicted the rebuilding of infrastructure that will be required. As Russia seeks to destroy, Ukrainians like Maletskiy have hope there will be a time of reconstruction.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.