The Pope is serious and makes peace efforts after Russia’s attack on Ukraine. At the beginning of the week he sent the Archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, to Kiev as his special envoy. The main goal of this initiative is to “listen carefully to Ukraine about the possibilities of achieving a just peace,” the head of the Catholic Church said on Monday. They also want to support “gestures of humanity” that could help to reduce tensions.
The Vatican deliberately expressed caution with this. The Ukrainian side has reservations about an open-ended mediation. There the Pope is resented for wanting to enter into dialogue with both sides. While he has repeatedly emphasized the suffering of the Ukrainian side, he has avoided attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin too offensively. “I don’t rule out contact with anyone, not even with the aggressor. Sometimes the dialogue stinks, but it has to be conducted,” the pope once said. “Otherwise we will close the only sensible door to peace.”
Zelenky’s conversation with Francis was polite but confrontational
Since the beginning of the war in February last year, the Vatican has repeatedly offered to mediate. On the flight back from his trip to Hungary at the end of April, Francis indicated that a peace mission was being prepared in secret. During the visit of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Rome in May, the conversation between the two heads of state was polite, but rather confrontational on the matter. Pope Francis had generally mentioned the “humanitarian and political situation” surrounding the ongoing war.
Zelensky demanded that the pope should explicitly condemn Russian crimes in Ukraine: “We don’t need mediators between Ukraine and the aggressor who occupied our territories, we need an action plan for a just peace in Ukraine,” he later said in a television interview . At most, Selensky could imagine acting as an intermediary for the return of Ukrainian children who had been abducted to Russia and an exchange of prisoners.
Possibly the Italian’s next trip will be to Moscow
Regardless of this, a few days later the Pope appointed Cardinal Zuppi as a special envoy. He has entrusted his best man with this task. Not only that Zuppi is well connected and very influential, which his position as chairman of the Italian Bishops’ Conference only partially expresses. The 67-year-old is also considered a promising candidate to succeed 86-year-old Francis. He is also closely associated with the Comunita Sant’Egidio, which has repeatedly acted as mediator for the Vatican in international conflicts.
Zuppi was one of the founding members of the Catholic lay community in 1968, which was brought into being by Roman students, initially to help the homeless and the poorest of the poor in Rome, but later she became a mediator in international conflicts. The negotiations between the hostile civil war parties in Mozambique are still considered her masterpiece. In two years of complicated talks – with Zuppi’s significant participation – a peace was agreed at the community headquarters on the eponymous Piazza di Sant’Egidio in Rome’s Trastevere nightlife district, which ended the 16-year bloodshed in the Southeast African country.
Depending on the course of the talks in Kiev, it is conceivable that Zuppi will travel to Moscow immediately or soon. The Pope himself has repeatedly offered to go on the trip – but only if he is received equally in Kiev and Moscow.