Students at Chicago's St. Nicholas Cathedral School offer prayers for Ukraine

CHICAGO (CBS) -- As the war in Ukraine continues, some of Chicago's youngest residents are continuing to call for peace there.

CBS 2's Meredith Barack reports from St. Nicholas Cathedral School in West Town with more from the prayer vigil where there were some very powerful moments inside the school just a few hours ago.

Students from St. Nicholas not only gathered in song and prayer, but kids from other Catholic schools in the city were bussed in for the assembly.

The student-led vigil comes as Russia's invasion of Ukraine approaches the one month mark. 

It also was held ahead of Pope Francis' worldwide consecration of Russia and Ukraine this Friday.

It means the leader of the Catholic church will say a devotional prayer with the hopes that peace will triumph. Leaders in the Catholic church in Chicago said what's happening in Ukraine is barbaric and the work of the devil. They are in disbelief seeing these seeing children have to witness a war in their lifetime.

"To look at the children, innocent faces of children and see their counterparts in the Ukraine, perhaps their second cousins, their third  cousins, their different relatives and ancestors who are there in peril right now watching their apartment being burnt, seeing their sons and daughters moving on to war, seeing their children have to get on busses without them. What a terrible time," lamented Monsignor Kenneth Velo, Co-Chair Big Shoulders Fund.

Monsignor Velo said the Big Shoulders Fund, is continuing to work on getting Ukrainian refugee children to Chicago and into these schools so they have somewhere safe to be.

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