OTTAWA – As religious leaders from Ukraine sat in the gallery, the House of Commons passed unanimously on April 24 a motion honouring Ukrainian Catholic Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky for his courageous efforts to save Jews during the Second World War.
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s motion said Sheptytsky, who headed the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from 1900 until his death in 1944, courageously spoke out against violence against Jews and sheltered and saved the lives of more than 160 Ukrainian Jews, many of them children.
“This House is united in expressing Canada’s recognition of Andrey Sheptytsky’s courageous actions, compassion for his oppressed Jewish Ukrainian countrymen and enduring example of commitment to fundamental human rights as humankind’s highest obligation,” the motion said.
In the gallery was a man who owes his life to Sheptytsky. Dr. Leon Chameides, a retired pediatric cardiologist now living in Hartford, Conn., told CCN he and his older brother were put under Sheptytsky’s care when he was seven and his brother was almost 10. The brothers were separated so as to make it less likely they would give each other away, and they were hidden among Ukrainian orphans, taught Christian prayers and the Ukrainian language, he said. They never undressed or bathed around the other children to protect their identities. The Nazis often came around the monastery to inspect, looking for Jews.
Foolishness to the world 
It’s always good to hear from our shepherds and this interview with Cardinal Ouellett is no exception. However, what a missed opportunity to ask and get the views of this great Canadian Catholic leader on some of today’s important questions about the faith: the challenges to religious liberty, the erosion of parental rights, the onslaught of secularism and the distorted anthropology of the person in school curricula.