- I'm now joined by Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly,
to discuss this historic trip to Poland and Ukraine.
Mr. Kelly, good to see you, thanks for being with us.
- Hi, Jonathan, great to be with you.
- Well, it was quite a Holy Week.
You actually got to go to Poland, you went to Ukraine,
you also got to see the Holy Father.
And we've been producing a lot of videos,
keeping our members informed
about what we're doing and what's going on over there,
but it's different when you're there,
when you see it with your own eyes.
Tell me what some of your first impressions were
landing in Poland, going to some of our centers.
- Well, it was a Holy Week like I've never had before
and I've had some interesting ones in my life.
I've been deployed in the military,
but this was really different.
And I would say it was very, very inspiring
to go to Poland and then to go to Ukraine
and just to see the resolve of the Polish Knights,
the resolve of the Ukrainian Knights.
It's so encouraging to see this.
You know, the Polish Knights have really, really stepped up
to help Ukraine and to help Ukrainian refugees.
And there's such a tremendous sense of solidarity
between the Polish Knights and the Ukrainian Knights,
just in terms of the mercy center that we have established,
that the Polish Knights are running and operating.
And just so many of the different initiatives.
10,000 Easter care packages were produced and delivered
into Ukraine during Holy Week.
There's an orphanage we visited.
But just a tremendous sense of solidarity
between the Knights.
But I would say with Knights all over the world,
I mean, as you know, Knights have really stepped up
with the Ukraine solidarity fund
to come to the aid of Ukrainian refugees.
- And against such a background of need.
I mean, you can't help also contrast the hope
and inspiration and resolve
with just really sad circumstances.
- Yeah, it's really true, it's really true.
And I think it was especially poignant to be there
during Holy Week, right?
As we approached Good Friday.
Because Ukraine is really in a Good Friday
at this point in time.
But to spend time with the Ukrainian refugees
is to see people who are resilient.
I'll never forget one woman
in particular I was speaking with.
We were in Ukraine at a refugee center
and she was expressing her gratitude
to the Knights of Columbus and saying that,
so many people have been so generous and so good to her.
She was so grateful for this.
And she was grateful to God
that she has been taken care of as a refugee.
And I just thought to myself,
what an amazing sense of gratitude
from this woman who's lost so much.
I mean, her daughter is in the Ukrainian military
and so she is in this refugee center with her granddaughter
and she doesn't know when she'll go home again,
when she'll see the rest of her family again.
But just that the fact that this woman had such gratitude
was an inspiring thing to see.
- And this is why it's so meaningful and important
that we're actually really there,
that we have brothers in Poland and brothers in Ukraine.
And this is relatively recent though,
that we moved to Poland and Ukraine.
- Yeah, it is very recent,
We have people on the ground who know these communities.
And that is what has helped us to do so much there.
And it really is, it's providential that, you know,
the Knights in Poland and Ukraine
have been there for a relatively short amount of time,
but just to see the good that has happened there.
You know, we were talking at one point to a Polish chaplain,
a chaplain of a council who said to us
that they are very, very far from St Mary's church,
but they're very close to Father McGivney.
And that's really true.
I mean, that's what you see in Poland
is a direct legacy of the charism of Father McGivney.