Two weeks after his rise to St. Peter’s thronethe first Pope from the United States is employed by world leaders for another central role: the pacifist between Ukraine and Russia.

The initiative to mediate the Vatican In the conversations between Moscow and Kiev, it could be an early test for Pope Leo XIV, who in the past had kept a more overtly pro-Turkish attitude than his predecessor. Pope playing a role in ending Europe’s worst conflict by World War II could help define his early Papism.

“The Holy See is available so enemies can meet and look at each other in the eyes,” he said Pope during a meeting with the eastern Christian churches last week.

World leaders have expressed interest in the Vatican, which they are facing as a neutral institution, which is considered to be out of the strategic interests of other mediators. Donald Trump, following his telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin on Monday, said the new Pope offered to host talks on the ceasefire in Ukraine. He later added: “I think it would be great to have it in the Vatican. … I think maybe this could help a little of this anger. “

Later on Tuesday, the Italian prime minister Georgia He posted on Facebook that, at Trump’s request, he contacted Pope Leo and confirmed his willingness to host the talks. “I expressed deeply gratitude for his openness and his relentless commitment to peace,” Meloni wrote.

Europe and, for a while, the United States They push for a ceasefire before the negotiations. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected this approach on Wednesday, saying that Europeans need a ceasefire to “calm down Ukraine” and strengthen its defense.

An agreement on conducting peace talks in the Vatican continues to face practical challenges. European sanctions and travel bans have made Russian officials nervous. As a member of the European Union, Italy is expected to maintain these sanctions and keep the offenders.

However, Italian officials informed the Russians that, according to the Treaty of the Latteran of 1929 Founded by the state of the Vatican city, their government must allow safe passage to diplomatic missions in the Vatican. Hosting talks in the Vatican city can also require logistical concessions from other European nations, including Russian officials to fly through Europe’s airspace. Legal experts say it remains unclear if more senior executives, especially Putin, will be covered by the treaty.

In the last decade, the Vatican has been involved in clashes with various levels of success, mainly sending superior clergy elsewhere. The Vatican’s mediation paved the way for President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba in 2016. The Holy See also sought and failed to mediate a successful agreement between the authoritarian government and the political opposition in Venezuela.

The conversion of the Holy See to a kind of sacred Switzerland He would repeat the role played by the Vatican in the early 1980s by hosting talks that prevented Argentina and Chile from going to war. However, unlike the involvement of the Vatican in it and in many other conflicts, neither Ukraine nor Russia is a Catholic country.

Mixing the Vatican could be “a really dangerous thing”, in part because two of the leaders involved – Putin and Trump – “are not exactly a guarantee of credibility,” he said ChewCatholic theologian at Vilanova University. “So, if they do this, it is in the hope that they will be able to get something on behalf of Ukraine, for Europe, for the whole world.”

Pope Leo is suddenly sought as a mediator in other conflicts. Colombian President Gustavo Petros announced on Monday that, during his audience with the Pope, he asked the Vatican to host talks between his government and the guerrilla team of the National Liberation Army (ELN). The Vatican had earlier assisted in the historical peace agreement of the Colombian government with a larger group of guerrillas, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Ukraine, officials say, requested for the first time the Vatican’s intervention during the Franciscanshortly after the Russian invasion in 2022. The Holy See – through its diplomatic missions to Kiev and Moscow and a senior envoy to the Cardinal Matteo Zuppi – has since helped to facilitate the exchange of hundreds of prisoners.

The Ukrainians continued to pursue the mediation of the Vatican, although some officials in Kiev were outraged by Francis, who, as an Argentine, grew up in a country where many people nourish suspicions of Western powers, as well as more realistic forces. At the beginning of the war, Francis mourned the conflict, while closely observing the traditional neutrality of the Vatican – something that was not surprised at an institution where, during World War II, Pope Pius Xii avoided a direct criticism.

Francis, however Russian Orthodox Churchwhich tried to justify the war, warning its patriarch in May 2022 not to become “the child on Putin’s altar”. But he also offered an understanding of Moscow’s position, saying that the “barking of NATO at the door of Russia” could have caused the invasion. In August 2023, the Vatican controlled the damage after Francis seemed to glorify Russia’s imperial past.

Pope Leo, when working as a bishop in Peru in 2022, criticized Russian aggression, describing the war in a video as a “imperial invasion”. During his two weeks as a Pope, he has also been repeatedly reported to the Ukraine. And his first known official call, and the first official meeting, was with Zelenski.

“I convey to my heart the suffering of the beloved Ukrainian people,” Pope Leo said during his first Sunday blessing in St. Peter’s Square. “May it become what is possible to achieve an authentic, fair and lasting peace, as soon as possible. Let all prisoners and children be released to return to their families. “