Francis, however, called off a planned June meeting with Kirill, who has justified Putin’s war on ideological and spiritual grounds. Francis has said the Vatican’s diplomats — presumably Gallagher and his boss, the secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin — realized the optics would be bad.
But the Vatican is still pursuing its diplomatic efforts in hopes of bringing about at the very least a cease-fire.
“The Holy See has this vocation,” Gallagher told RAI. “We try never to put ourselves on one side or the other, but to create a space for dialogue and be available to everyone for the sake of peace, and find solutions to these terrible conflicts.”
This article originally appeared on APNews.com.
