Cardinal Zuppi and Chinese government representative discuss War in Ukraine
The Holy See Press Office confirms a telephone call between Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, whom Pope Francis has sent on a peace mission to kyiv, Moscow, Washington and Beijing in 2023, and Li Hui, Beijing’s delegate for Eurasian affairs.
By Vatican News
The Holy See Press Office confirmed on Thursday that yesterday morning, Wednesday, August 14, there was “a cordial conversation” between Li Hui, Special Representative of the Chinese government for Eurasian Affairs, and Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, to whom the Pope entrusted a peace mission last year, “in the framework of the mission entrusted to the cardinal by Pope Francis for peace in Ukraine, and following the meeting in Beijing last September.”
“During the phone call,” the statement reads, “great concern was expressed about the situation and the need to promote dialogue between the parties, with adequate international guarantees for a just and lasting peace.”
Mission to seek peaceful solutions
Cardinal Zuppi was sent in 2023 by Pope Francis with the aim of helping to “ease tensions in the conflict in Ukraine, in the hope, which the Holy Father has never renounced, that this could open paths to peace.”
Between June and July, the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference visited kyiv, Moscow and Washington, where he met with political and ecclesiastical representatives.
In September 2023, Cardinal Zuppi visited Beijing, where he met with Li Hui and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China on the war in Ukraine and the need to join efforts to foster dialogue and find paths to peace.
The Holy Mother accompanies the suffering
In an editorial published in the daily newspaper Future On August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, the cardinal reflected on the wounds of today in the world, a suffering, he suggested, that the Virgin Mary knows.
“The Mother knows pain and her pain makes us understand that of those who suffer,” he stressed, observing that today, on the solemnity of the Holy Mother, “there is always Sorrowful Mother (Mary, Mother of Sorrows) with the “seven swords” that pierce her heart.
As the cardinal called for overcoming divisions and seeking peace, he noted how many images of Our Lady there are Sorrowful Mother in our countries.
“In particular,” Cardinal Zuppi stressed, “it is present in Europe, in Russia and Ukraine, in the Holy Land, in the Middle East, in Africa and throughout the world where guilty wars are unleashed and innocent victims fall.”
