“Let us not tire of entrusting the cause of peace to the Queen of Peace,” he said. “Therefore, I would like to invite each believer and community, especially prayer groups, to renew every March 25 the act of consecration to Our Lady, so that she, who is Mother, may guard us all in unity and peace.”
Pope Francis also urged people not to forget to pray for “martyred Ukraine, which is suffering so much.”
Last year, Pope Francis asked all the bishops of the world to join him in consecrating Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, one month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
From the tip of Florida to Seattle, every U.S. diocese participated in the consecration in one form or another. The bishop of Fairbanks prayed the consecration on the shores of the Bering Sea, facing Russia, his diocese’s neighbor just a few hundred miles to the west.
The act of consecration was also read simultaneously by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal.
In Moscow, Catholics tuned in and prayed along with a live broadcast of the pope’s consecration from the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
