VATICAN CITY – The sky above St. Peter’s is gray like the prospects of peace. When Volodymyr Zelensky he arrives in the courtyard of the Paul VI Hall shortly after 4 pm, we already know that the audience with the Pope will not be the simplest. The first time he was received by Francis on February 8, 2020, just over three years have passed and it’s as if they were ten, the young president who seemed a bit intimidated in a suit and tie now shows up in a military sweatshirt, gray , the air pulled. They shake hands in the little room behind the Sala Nervi, “it is a great honor for me to be here”, says Zelensky with a hint of a bow, “thank you for this visit”, the Pope smiles.
There is a crucifix on the table, sitting facing each other it is as if they were studying each other, the private conversation lasts forty minutes. And the first sign of how tiring it was is in the first words of the Holy See, entrusted to the spokesman Matteo Bruni: a few lines to say that the “humanitarian and political situation in Ukraine caused by the ongoing war” was discussed, except to add that “both agreed on the need to continue humanitarian efforts to support the population”. The convergence is therefore shown on the “humanitarian” aspects and not on the “political” situation, as if to limit, at least for now, the space of the “peace mission” of which Francis had spoken at the end of April.
A difference confirmed by what Zelensky will tell later toDoor to door, spelling out that his country does not need mediators and the only peace plan is the Ukrainian one. In short, no to Vatican mediation. And in what the Ukrainian president adds in a message, “I asked for Russian crimes to be condemned in Ukraine, because there can be no equality between the victim and the aggressor”, we note a certain intolerance that has accompanied Ukraine in recent months Francis’ attempts to “build bridges”: open all possible channels of dialogue towards “the road to peace” and encourage mediation, to the point of making the Vatican available for talks between the parties.
The Pope has never failed, every week, to pray for “the martyred Ukrainian people”. After all, he said it without veils on his return from Kazakhstan, last September, to journalists who asked him if there was a limit to the willingness to dialogue with Moscow: «I don’t exclude dialogue with the aggressor, sometimes dialogue stinks, but it must be done.” The communiqués of the Holy See do not mention inviting the Pope to go to Kiev: he has already said that he will only do so if he can also go to Moscow. Francesco donated a sculpture in the form of an olive branch, Zelensky reciprocated with a work made from a bulletproof plate and a painting on the killing of children.
Yet it doesn’t end there. Certainly the door is tighter than ever, Zelensky’s words are compounded by the difficulty of speaking with Moscow, not to mention Putin. But the avenues of diplomacy are endless, the possibility remains that the Pope will send two cardinals to Kiev and Moscow with an extreme appeal. But above all, the path of humanitarian dialogue remains open. The Pope spoke to Zelensky of the “urgent need for ‘human gestures’ towards the most fragile people, innocent victims of the conflict”, especially the children deported to Russia: in this case the Holy See has already been mediating for some time. “We must make every effort to bring them home,” the Ukrainian president agreed.
Also in the subsequent interview with ZelenskyArchbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican “foreign minister”, insisted on the “need to continue efforts to achieve peace”. Shortly before seeing Zelensky, Francis spoke to the ambassadors of the “hope” that “the last word will never be said to avoid a conflict or resolve it peacefully”, to the point of exclaiming: “When we learn from history that the ways of violence, of oppression and unbridled ambition to conquer land do not serve the common good?