Daniel del Castillo González
With the war between Russia and Ukraine closing off political channels, the Vatican is keeping other avenues of contact alive.
At the center of one of them is Cardinal Matteo Zuppi.
Francis named him his peace envoy to Ukraine in 2023.
FRANCIS
Cardinal Zuppi’s mission is a peace mission that I entrusted to him. His plans were to visit Moscow, Kyiv, the United States and Beijing. Cardinal Zuppi is a man of great “universality” and dialogue. His history includes the work for peace in Mozambique and all of that, and that is why I sent him.
Pope Leo XIV has chosen to preserve that mission. Now, just two months after his trip to Ukraine, Cardinal Zuppi has traveled to Russia to visit Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Among the issues discussed were people who are missing and children who need to return to Ukraine. Zuppi has urged that the necessary checks be accelerated.
ANDRII YURASH
Ambassador of Ukraine to the Holy See
The mission of Cardinal Zuppi is concentrated on helping Ukranian children which were stolen by Russia or taken away from Ukrainian territory to Russia or Belarus, as well and returning the prisioners.
Zuppi also met with Kirill, the Patriarch of the Russian Church. Their talks touched on tensions between Russia and the West, while bringing back a very specific precedent.
There was a personal reason for that meeting as well. Zuppi said the delegation changed its itinerary because Pope Leo XIV specifically wanted the conversation with Kirill to happen.
Only weeks earlier, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, had traveled to Moscow.
The roles, however, are different: Gallagher represents the Holy See’s diplomatic channel, while Zuppi has been given a specific humanitarian mission.
ARCHIVE
CARD. MATTEO ZUPPI
Archbishop of Bologna, Italy
We are beginning to protect the youngest. That is the task of the mission entrusted to me by Pope Francis, which is beginning to bear some fruit for those who need to be reunited with their families.
For now, success comes in concrete forms: a prisoner making it home, a child reunited with family, or a missing person whose fate is finally known.
It is Zuppi’s third trip to Moscow in three years, carrying on a mission Pope Leo XIV has decided not to abandon.
As diplomatic efforts continue to search for a path out of the war, the Church continues to help those caught in its consequences.
