Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has not exactly been a destination or vacation hot spot. For Father Peter Daly, a retired priest of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, even calling it a “working holiday” may be a stretch. 

Father Daly and his traveling companions, which included two former congressmen, took two months to plan their two-week visit to Ukraine and neighboring Poland. Their itinerary averaged two distinct meetings per day. And even then, some things we would take for granted carried more weight for them. 

Trip insurance, for one. For us, it might be needed due to lost luggage, or a missed connection resulting in an overnight stay at a hotel. For Father Daly’s group, he said, it was “in case they had to ship our bodies back.” 

That was one of the inescapable realities of the March 8-22 trip, which took in Ukrainian refugees in Poland, and internally displaced Ukrainians no longer in their own homes but still in their native homeland.  

One of the former congressmen was David Bonior, a Democrat from Michigan who settled after leaving Congress in Fort Republic, Maryland, not far from Father Daly’s longtime pastorate at St. John Vianney Parish in Prince Frederick. The other was Jim McDermott, a child psychiatrist who served his Washington State district as a congressman from 1989 to 2017. 

Father Daly, who is also a lawyer, had helped coordinate a program for Ethiopian refugees while a seminarian, and more recently worked with people coming from Nicaragua under the auspices of Catholic Charities of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington’s immigration services arm. 

But that didn’t compare to what he saw during his visit. 

In one town, the American visitors lived in a home given over to internally displaced people, according to Father Daly. “I guess it’s going to be there for the duration of the war,” he said. “Their lives are turned completely upside-down,” calling their conversations with the Ukrainians living there “very emotional.” 

Father Daly said that at first, an estimated 7 million had fled the violence in their country, with another 5.4 million internally displaced, with Poland and Germany providing shelter to the largest number of Ukrainians. Those numbers have since fluctuated and, most agree, have decreased. Perhaps 2 million remain in Poland, a good number in border towns that makes travel to and from Ukraine easier. 

Of that number, 1.6 million are aided by Caritas. “The Catholic Church is the only institution that has reach into every village in Poland,” Father Daly said. The Polish government works through Caritas to distribute aid to the refugees. Father Daly pointed out that there are no Ukrainian refugee camps in Poland. Most stay in parishes, convents, and monasteries. 

Father Daly said he sees the solidarity between Poles and Ukrainians as “a permanent change. Of course, there’s nothing like a common threat from Russia to bring you together,” he added, quoting Father Marcin Izycki, head of Caritas Poland: “If Ukraine falls, Poland’s next.” 

It was during their visit that Russian President Vladimir Putin was indicted by the International Criminal Court for kidnapping Ukrainian children to live in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory or in Russia itself, ostensibly to be adopted by Russian parents or to live in orphanages to scrub away their Ukrainian upbringing. 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian investigators continue to collect evidence of war crimes committed by Russia. “They don’t expect to try these cases for years,” Father Daly said. “You can’t just accept anybody’s video or photographs. They have to verify.” 

He continued: “‘What did you see? What happened here? Do you have evidence?’ ... Eventually, they hope it will go to the International Criminal Court,” which has universal criminal jurisdiction. “You can bring a change in any court,” Father Daly added, “against violators of human rights” against these officials. 

During one of their listening sessions, Father Daly heard a grim tale from a Ukrainian woman and her son. “You could lie in bed and hear Russian troops torturing some of their neighbors,” the young man said. They concluded, “Well, if they’re torturing our neighbors, they’re coming for us next.” Some said they could hear people pleading for their lives. They left that very night. 

“They said they went through more than 20 checkpoints getting out,” Father Daly said. “They talked their way through it: ‘We need medication,’ ‘we need to see a relative.’ When they saw Ukrainian solders, they knew they were safe.” 

“We found out that every city has three pronunciations – the Polish pronunciation, the Ukrainian pronunciation and the Russian pronunciation – and nobody wants to use the Russian pronunciation anymore,” Father Daly said. “We listened to their stories for two hours” in Lviv, the biggest city in western Ukraine, which the priest said was as far away from the fighting as Chicago is from Washington. 

“People who speak Russian now refuse to speak Russian,” he said. The group’s interpreter, a native Ukrainian, left for Poland after Russia took the Crimean peninsula in 2014 – which many Ukrainians now point to as the start of the war – and took Polish citizenship. “Her mother spoke Russian,” Father Daly said, but “she won’t speak to her relatives in Russian.” As a result, the mother is “struggling” to learn Polish. 

Two hosts went to a restaurant in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, during a lull in the fighting. “They started to order in Russian, and the waiter said, ‘We don’t take orders in that language anymore.’” 

The American delegation also stayed at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. But despite its distance from the fighting, warplanes and drones make no area safe from bombing. Even during classes at the Ukrainian Catholic University, professors and students had to seek cover amid the sounds of explosions. 

Father Daly said some people have air-raid apps on their phones. Some apps sound like sirens; another features the voice of actor Mark Hamill from the “Star Wars” movies saying, “You’re overconfident,” and ending with, “May the force be with you.” 

Bonior told C-SPAN he was amazed at the “just total commitment to the country and love for the country” from the students, and “I wouldn’t call it a hate, but they can’t believe the atrocities the Russians” committed. 

“Their orientation is shifting away from the East and toward the West,” Father Daly said, as evidenced by a show of hands conducted of students by Bonior: “How many of you want to join NATO? One hundred percent. How many of you want to join the EU? One hundred percent. How may do you want to separate from Russia? One hundred percent.” 

“The tensions rise when you cross the border. The windows of the train are covered in plastic. In case there’s a bomb, the glass doesn’t fly everywhere,” Father Daly said. In a similar fashion, “sandbags are over the windows in most of the buildings ... so people can go into the basement and be safe. There’s solidarity everywhere.” 

One example was a gas station in Ukraine that redirected one hryvnia – about three cents – to buy supplies for the military. 

What the United States does in providing supplies and materiel is just as important. “It’s money well spent. The one thing people don’t understand is that it’s not our lives there,” but those of Ukrainian soldiers. Despite new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy saying he won’t give a “blank check” to Ukraine, Bonior said he believes the votes will be there to continue sending arms to Ukraine. 

But, Father Daly said, “this isn’t a military at war. This is a nation at war.”