After a year of war in Ukraine Pope Francis appears isolated. Never in the last sixty years has the Holy See – in the face of events of international importance – found itself in such a marginal situation. In the European Union nobody agrees with his proposal for a cease-firewhich paves the way for negotiations for a peace that takes into account the concerns of the parties involved.
Britain ignores it. US President Biden does not want interference. Putin he does not consider the Vatican a go-between effective to reach negotiations. Xi Jinping, for reasons of internal politics, does not intend to give excessive prominence to the position of the Holy See. Zelensky, who even in the aftermath of the Russian invasion had hinted at the possibility of mediation by the Vatican, now wants only one thing: a trip by the pontiff to Kyiv to corner Putin even further. The arrival of the pope, explains a Ukrainian diplomat, “would blow up the last bridge of the Russian terrorist state with the civilized world“.
It’s a situation never experienced by Vatican diplomacy. In European chancelleries, Francis’ voice is respected but marginalized, silenced. In some embassies there is a tendency to comment that basically the Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin and the Vatican Foreign Minister, Msgr. Gallagher, they’d feel bad about the line uncompromising of the Argentine pope. Intransigent because, as he declared the Osservatore Romano last year, the pope of Rome “cannot be the chaplain of the West”.
The isolation of the Vatican is a phenomenon unreleased. It derives from the abrupt change of the international context. Sixty years ago, during the Cuban crisis, both Kennedy and Khrushchev wanted to use Vatican mediation. Even during the Obama presidency, the Washington government found convenient arrive at an arrangement of relations with Havana through the Vatican.
To go back to another major international crisis – the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Great Britain in 2003 – the clearly opposite position of John Paul II it was possible to benefit from the analogous and converging opposition of France and Germany (as well as Russia and China). Around the catch “no” of Wojtyla the World Council of Churches, the Anglican Church, the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Russia and the Council of Churches of the United States took sides.
Now the Christian world is strongly torn in the face of war. And in Europe the “French-German engine” as an element of autonomous political elaboration has failed. In 2008, it was Paris and Berlin that blocked US President George W. Bush’s push to further expand the space to the east Nato, incorporating Ukraine. Today a European position does not exist. France, Germany, Italy, the historic nucleus of the EU, are silent.
In 2022 the trip of Draghi, Macron and Scholz to Kyiv highlighted the give up to any European political role in discussing war ends and objectives: the three leaders simply brought President Zelensky assent to Ukraine’s status as a country candidate for the European Union (which according to the rules in force he could not have obtained).
The keys to a possible solution to the conflict lie with Washington as well as with Mosca. There is no international policy expert or head of key institutional sectors (foreign and intelligence) of NATO countries who does not know that the dominus of the situation is Joe Biden. The president of the United States has moved so far in a calm and rational manner. He will decide how far to go. But the escalation of the conflict is by its nature unpredictable and no one can imagine what would happen if Russia came to consider the nuclear option viable, given that Putin agitates the concept of an “existential struggle” in his speeches.
At the UN the resolution for an “immediate, complete and unconditional” withdrawal of Russia has had one clear majority (141 votes). Yet there remains a large part of the world population (China, India, Pakistan, South Africa but also states that voted “yes” to the resolution) who do not want to accept the “either with me or against me” approach of the Western front.
Francesco she may seem like an unheard Cassandra if we limit ourselves to the “white band” of the West. But the global geopolitical line, which he has impressed (as Wojtyla did) on Vatican politics, makes every day more polished and realistic his cry of alarm. There is no peace without a ceasefire. Peace cannot be built if one thinks only in terms of military blocs. A unipolar management of the world it is not practicable. A new bipolar cold war (US-China) is not productive for the planet. Therefore – as Francis asks – it is urgent to think of a new one Helsinkia pact for a system of planetary relations signed by the main protagonists of the international scene.
The recent Chinese memorandum, writes theto come, can be criticized, but it is a “political” gesture that requires a political response. Expect it to be written as they would like to Washington it does not make sense. Francis has behind him the growing unease of popular masses, who are not convinced by the proclamations that incite “war until victory”. Either you get to stop the weapons or risk slipping into general disaster.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmyhal he has just declared that for a hundred years there will be no room for a reconciliation with Moscow. The goal to be achieved is that the Russia is “democratized, demilitarized and denuclearized”. In short, the fate of Russia must be reserved for Germania in 1945. It is the opposite of what French President Macron once indicated: defense of Ukraine yes, but “no revenge and humiliation” for Moscow.
Kyiv’s position pushes towards catastrophe. And the catastrophe it is what Francis urges to avoid.