March 11, 2025 // Diocese

‘There Is Resilience in the Ukrainian People’

Clare Hildebrandt

Reporter

Notre Dame Conference Highlights Stories of Hope Amid Ongoing War

Many wore traditional Ukrainian garb – embroidered blouses known as vyshyvanka – at the University of Notre Dame’s March 6-8 conference titled, “Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine.” Intricate patterns of geometric shapes and flowers lined the sleeves in rich colors, acting as a sign of shared love for the country.

The conference, sponsored by the university’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies, explored various themes of wartime Ukraine, especially hope and its relationship to the Ukrainian people.

The Nanovic Institute brought together a wide variety of Ukrainian experts who spoke during the conference. Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, who is president of Ukrainian Catholic University, addressed the crowd. Rory Finnin, professor of Ukrainian studies at Cambridge, also spoke. Artists and poets were also invited to share their work.

Bishop Rhoades began the conference with prayer, asking Our Lady for her intercession in lending peace and hope to those in Ukraine.

“Heavenly Father, we ask that you bless all who participate in this conference, focused on hope in Ukraine,” he prayed. “Here at the university of Our Lady, we ask the Queen of Peace and the Mother of Hope to intercede for her sons and daughters of Ukraine.”

Archbishop Gudziak took the stage after Bishop Rhoades, sharing his own reflections on hope amid the war in Ukraine.

“The word ‘hope’ in Ukrainian … includes the word for action, if you would break it apart. There are many examples of hope in the actions of the Ukrainian people,” he said.

A little more than three years ago – on February 22, 2022 – Russia invaded Ukraine, continuing the aggression that began in 2014. The war is the largest conflict in Europe since the end of World War II.

“Fourteen million people were forced from their homes in the first few months [of the war]. Never in human history have so many people been moved so quickly from their homes,” explained Archbishop Gudziak.

He continued: “There’s now at least 14 million IDPs or internally displaced persons. Where are the refugee camps? We don’t have them because they’ve been absorbed by institutions, by cities, towns, and villages.”

“The poor in Ukraine are helping the absolutely destitute, and that is what we call having agency. That is what we also call Catholic social teaching.”

Archbishop Gudziak went on to praise the respect for the dignity of the person and the vision for the common good in the country. He gave another example from his trip to the Mykolaiv region in the southern part of Ukraine.

“There was a woman, 4-foot-11 with a thick braid down her back, running a cooperative on hundreds of hectares of land,” Archbishop Gudziak said. “It was previously Russian occupied, and so much was destroyed, but this woman was still running it. Seeing her run this cooperative with a few hundred people while also serving the best pierogies I’ve ever had in my life was just incredible,” he said.

“There is resilience in the Ukrainian people. They have their own agency, and in the end, there is great hope that God’s truth will prevail,” Archbishop Gudziak concluded.

Clemens Sedmak, a professor of social ethics at Notre Dame and the director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, said he was impressed by the three-day conference.

“The people at this conference are people who really care about the country – a country that has been wounded and ravished by war,” Sedmak said. “It is filled with resilient and courageous faith-filled people headed toward sainthood through martyrdom and sacrifice. It is very impressive and inspiring.”

He continued: “[The Nanovic Institute] wanted to bring people here on campus who are interested in Ukraine studies and care about the country, together with the experts who we bring from the outside. We have roughly 40 speakers who came in with different roles.”

Many of those speakers came from the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, a school with which Notre Dame has had a close partnership. The conference served to launch the Ukrainian Studies Hub, allowing students from both universities to collaborate and study abroad.

“The Ukrainian Studies program is unique due to Notre Dame’s close ties with the Ukrainian Catholic University,” Sedmak said. “The main focus is research and joint projects. The school of architecture, the school of law, the college of business, welcome these students. [The Ukrainian Studies Program] is a way of bringing those two university communities together.”

Overall, “the people who care about Ukraine give us so much hope,” Sedmak said. “Our colleagues from Ukraine Catholic University have lived day in and day out with the war now for more than three years.”

“There is hope,” Sedmak said. “This conference is about it. It is all about hope.”

Clare Hildebrandt is a staff writer for Today’s Catholic.