Ukraine protest is spiritual movement: Catholic Bishop

Rome, 11 December 2013: When Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Borys Gudziak addressed the crowds in Kiev's Independence Square Dec. 8, he focused on the youth and told them they could change the country. The U.S.-born bishop and former rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv currently serves as the bishop for Ukrainian Catholics in France but was in Kiev for a meeting of the synod of bishops of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Bishop Gudziak was not the only prelate at the large Dec. 8 demonstration. Retired Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the 80-year-old former head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, spoke from the main stage early in the morning. The protest area includes a tent chapel where liturgy is celebrated, Bishop Gudziak said, and Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant clergy have been assisting the demonstrators. "It's very much a spiritual movement, a movement of hearts and values," Bishop Gudziak told Catholic News Service Dec. 9.

Speaking by telephone from Kiev, he said the protesters want "a country where corruption doesn't reign, where a mother doesn't have to pay a bribe to get a doctor for her child, where students don't have to pay bribes to get into university."
Source: CNS