Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and archbishop of Bologna, has been sent by Pope Francis to Washington for a few days on a diplomatic mission to promote peace between Ukraine and Russia.
This visit follows two other trips to Kyiv and Moscow in June, all of which are part of a peace mission requested by the Holy Father in May this year. Cardinal Zuppi is accompanied by an official from the Secretariat of State, which acts as the Vatican’s foreign ministry.
His mission is more humanitarian than political, as Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin reminded Italian channel RAI in an interview a few days ago. Zuppi intends to communicate and take action on two issues in particular: the exchange of prisoners and the repatriation of Ukrainian children deported to Russia. According to Parolin, Zuppi’s trip to Moscow in June enabled him to obtain a favourable hearing from Russian officials, which was a fundamental first step. He was able to meet personally with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as President Putin’s adviser on international affairs, Yuri Ushakov, and the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Alekseevna Lvova-Belova.
The archbishop of Bologna is due to be received by Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, July 18th. The meeting comes at a time when the Biden administration is reaffirming its support for the Ukrainian counteroffensive, in particular by sending new weapons, including a type of cluster bomb whose use is condemned by the Holy See. The sending of cluster bombs to Ukraine has also just been condemned by the American Episcopal Conference, which disapproves of the United States’ failure to sign the international convention that is supposed to ban them.
