Vatican City, (EFE) by Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, but denied by both Kiev and Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again denied knowledge of an alleged Vatican-led peace mission. “We know that the Pope is constantly thinking about peace and how to end this conflict, but we don’t know of any detailed plan proposed by the Vatican,” Peskov said, according to Italian media.
The same had been said by kyiv representatives, assuring that they are not aware of any peace initiative on the part of the Vatican. “If there have been talks, they have taken place without us knowing,” Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelensky’s press office said, according to Italian media.
However, the Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, revealed that he was “surprised” by the reactions of Ukraine and Russia and assured that the mission “will be carried out.”
On the sidelines of a book presentation at the Lumsa University in Rome, Parolín reiterated this Wednesday the pope’s words during the press conference on his return from Budapest, assuring that “there is a mission underway, but it is not yet public.”
“The Pope said that there will be a mission that will be announced when it is made public and I repeat the same expressions that he used. We leave any other information to him,” explained Parolín, who, however, assured: “As far as I know, both parties were and are aware.”
“But you know how the labyrinth of bureaucracy is, it may be that communications do not reach where they should. But mine are just interpretations, I know that both parties have been informed, ”she reiterated.
How to interpret this denial? The highest representative of Vatican diplomacy was asked. “I would say that it surprises me and I don’t know what motivation or reasoning it responds to,” replied the cardinal,
Regarding the presence these days in the Vatican of Metropolitan Antoni, president of the Department of Foreign Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, emissary of the Orthodox Patriarch Cyril, who supports the invasion of Ukraine, Parolin assured that he has nothing to do with the mission and “forms part of the normal communications that exist”.
For the moment, the Russian and Ukrainian ambassadors to the Vatican have not expressed themselves, which could be understood as a silence that they are working on it.
Although with the new denial by Moscow, the case of the Vatican mission becomes even more complicated.
The Vatican in these hours does not add anything else because it will be the Pope who will speak about it when he wants or can, but it is recalled in these hours that an initiative already rehearsed by John Paul II could be attempted to prevent the outbreak of a conflict in 2003 in Middle East.
Wojtyla made one last attempt by sending Cardinal Roger Etchegaray to Baghdad to talk to Saddam Hussein and Cardinal Pio Laghi was sent to Washington. However, Laghi was forced to spend hours in a waiting room to no avail, and Etchegaray met with the Iraqi president.
The then apostolic nuncio in Baghdad, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, recalls that Saddam was “willing to negotiate” and “thus approved a law against weapons of mass destruction in 48 hours, through the Council of Tribal Wise Men.”
The Italian press hypothesizes a mission of two cardinals to be sent to Ukraine and Russia, including Parolin and the secretary for relations with States, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, or even the prefect for the Eastern Churches, Claudio Gugerotti, who knows both Russian and Ukrainian well.