Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, special envoy of Pope Francis, visited Moscow as part of the Catholic Church’s effort to “open paths to the long-awaited peace” between Russia and Ukraine
“From the 14th to the 16th of this month, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Envoy of the Holy Father, accompanied by an official from the Secretariat of State, made a second visit to Moscow, in continuity with the mission entrusted to him by Pope Francis,” reports the Vatican Press Office.
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In Russia, the Italian cardinal met with Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Yuri Ushakov, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation on Foreign Policy Affairs; Marija Lvova-Belova, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights and Tatiana Moskalkova, Presidential Commissioner for Human Rights.
“The conversations made it possible to evaluate what has been done so far for the family reunification of minors and the exchange of prisoners, wounded and remains of the fallen,” the Vatican statement said.
Cardinal Zuppi also spoke with one of the leaders of the Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Antonij of Volokolamsk, President of the Department of Foreign Ecclesiastical Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, “with whom he discussed various issues, in particular of a humanitarian nature.”
In summary, the statement concludes, Cardinal Zuppi’s visit “has also allowed us to examine some perspectives to continue humanitarian collaboration and open paths towards the long-desired peace.”
The cardinal’s mission in Moscow took place a few days after Pope Francis met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a 35-minute private audience at the Vatican Apostolic Palace on Friday, October 11, this being their third meeting. since the start of the war in Ukraine.
This is the second time Cardinal Zuppi has traveled to Moscow since the start of the war in Ukraine. He also visited the Russian capital for 48 hours in June 2023. On that occasion, one of the topics discussed was that of 19,000 Ukrainian minors taken to Russia.
On multiple occasions, Pope Francis has advocated for an end to the war in Ukraine, especially after praying the Angelus on Sundays at the Vatican. The Holy Father usually asks not to forget the “martyred Ukraine” when referring to this intention.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.