ROME, 20 May. (EUROPEAN PRESS) –
Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, confirmed that the Pope has entrusted the task of mediating peace in Ukraine to Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the head of the Italian bishops.
“I can confirm that Pope Francis has entrusted Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, with the task of leading a mission in agreement with the Minister of Foreign Affairs to help de-escalate tensions in the Ukrainian conflict. It is in the hope that the Holy Father never gives up, that this can initiate the paths of peace. hopefully,” Bruni said in a statement.
This is how the Pope considered Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of the Italian Episcopal Conference, to travel to Kiev to mediate between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the presidents of Ukraine and Russia and try to solidify a standstill. fire in combat.
However, the Vatican described it as “the schedule and methods of such a mission are currently under review.”
This new diplomatic gesture is part of the secret peace mission that Francis announced during his return flight from Budapest last month. The Pope later emphasized: “I am ready to do whatever needs to be done. There is also a mission currently in progress but not yet open to the public. Let’s see how it will turn out… I’ll tell you when it’s public.”
The Vatican’s approval of Zuppi’s commission comes a day after Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, a senior official in the Vatican’s Office of the Eastern Churches, denied that he was involved in the Pope’s secret mission to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine.
“There has been wide international circulation about a peace mission entrusted to Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, Governor of the Department of the Eastern Churches. The governor reportedly knew nothing of what was said about him,” the Vatican department said. In a statement.
“Now is the time to take the initiative to create a just peace in Ukraine,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Foreign Minister and eventual head of diplomacy, said in a recent statement.
The Pope’s strategy is Pope John II, who in 2003 sent two high profile profiles to Washington and Baghdad. He made an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the start of the Iraq war.
Last Saturday, the Pope received Zelensky at the Vatican and met with him for 40 minutes behind closed doors.
He presented to the bishop his ten-point peace plan, which included Russia’s abandonment of all Ukrainian positions as the only possible way out of the war, the Ukrainian leader said at the time. After the meeting, he tweeted, “I talked about our Peace Formula, our only effective algorithm for achieving a just peace. I suggested that you participate in its implementation.”
He also openly refused any mediation a few hours later: “This is not a matter of the Vatican, of the USA, of Latin America, of China, or of any other country in the world: Putin. In the RAI public television program Porta a Porta. he just kills, we can’t mediate with him,” he stressed. Zelenskiy also thanked the Pope for his “personal involvement” in the dramatic illegal deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from Ukraine’s occupied territories to Russia, and the International Criminal Court’s issuing an arrest warrant for Putin.
Source: Noti Merica
