Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, received a very special assignment in May. Pope Francis, who considers him one of his most trusted men, asked him to carry out a mediation mission to help reduce the tensions of the conflict in Ukraine. The Pontiff explained in this way what he had already advanced during the press conference on the papal plane back from Budapest: that a secret mission by the Vatican was underway to try to lend a hand in a war entangled in Europe.
Shortly afterwards, the man whom Francis had appointed moved to Kyiv and Moscow. He also went to Washington and Beijing. One of the priorities of the Holy See, in addition to studying whether there was a space for dialogue, was the return home of the thousands of Ukrainian children who were forcibly brought to Russia. The operations have been carried out with great discretion, and the nuncio (Vatican ambassador) to Ukraine, Visvaldas Kulbokas, assured in an interview a few weeks ago that attempts to propose mediation mechanisms continue. “When you understand that one format doesn’t work, you start looking for another one and do some checks. It’s a continuous job”, he affirmed, and explained that they are currently working on the case of around a hundred children and intend to help 4,000 more.
Two years after the outbreak of war, Pope Francis’ attempt to present himself as a mediator to help in the conflict has not produced the expected results. “These Vatican mediations only work if there is a desire for peace and both sides lack a space to start negotiations. Many times the Vatican provides the missing space in international politics. Now, there is simply no desire for peace. The most important thing is to have a presence, so that when the time comes there will be that space”, assesses the biographer of the Pontiff Austen Ivereigh, author of a new book that will be published in the autumn in Spain.
“In reality, the mission did not come to fruition because there was a lot of good will, but it was immediately seen that it could not be because neither side accepted it. It is true that these are operations that are carried out with great discretion, but, if there had been any result, it would have appeared and it has not been so, unfortunately”, agrees Giovanni Maria Vian, expert in the history of the Church and former director of L ‘Osservatore Romano, the newspaper of the Vatican. Vian compares the role of the Vatican in Kyiv, led by a cardinal that the Italians include in the list of papables, with the mediation it carried out between Cuba and the USA. “That time it was very effective, but it was carried out with a totally different method. The diplomacy of the Holy See was involved, that is to say, the Secretary of State, the diplomats and the episcopates of the two countries. Here, diplomacy has practically not intervened because the Pope has played a direct role”.
Some improvised words of the Pontiff have not contributed to the fact that the Holy See was seen as a possible mediator before the two parties. In fact, he has been accused of being too even-handed, which has lowered the Pope’s popularity ratings in Ukraine, where he is seen as pro-Russian, from 45% before the attack to 6%. Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the Vatican was a bit cold. Although Francis in two years has not stopped asking for peace for the “martyred Ukraine” and has defended the role of the country as a victim, sometimes his statements have angered Kyiv. In the summer, for example, he caused a storm when he improvised in a speech to young Russians his admiration for “great Russia” and reminded them that they were heirs to tsars like Peter the Great, who invaded part of Sweden and Finland, and with whom Vladimir Putin has compared himself to justify the offensive in Ukraine. Afterwards, the Vatican was forced to emphasize that the Pontiff was referring to the Russian cultural heritage and that he did not intend to “exalt imperialist logics and government personalities”. He also greatly irritated Ukraine when he spoke of the assassination by car bomb of Daria Duguin, daughter of Aleksandr Duguin, an ideologue of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as another “innocent victim” of the war.
