- Pressure calculated four days before departure
- What Karassine actually said, and what he didn't say
- The agenda is becoming clearer, along with the pressure.
- Two cases that cannot be measured in the same way.
- What the Church can offer when asked for proof
- Words spoken with restraint versus words demanded
- What the pastor can carry where the diplomat fails
- Preparing for a larger mission
- The shadow of a vacant seat on the negotiating table
- A church-related issue that weighs on the humanitarian situation
- A nomination that tests the silence of the patriarchy
- The precedent of November 2021 as a measure of time traveled
- Lectio divina
- ✝ Biblical references
A chancery that clarifies its expectations four days before a diplomatic visit is never acting spontaneously. When Senator Grigory Karasin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council of Russia, specified this week that Moscow hoped for "concrete proposals" from Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher regarding prisoners and displaced Ukrainian children, he was not simply confirming an already known agenda. He was shifting the focus of the event. What, just a week ago, was expected to be a pastoral visit shrouded in diplomatic silence has, by virtue of this clarification, become a deadline with an anticipated outcome—almost a bill presented in advance. The Holy See, which has never been fond of being assigned the role of negotiator in the full sense of the word, thus finds itself summoned, four days before the arrival of its foreign minister in Moscow, to produce what Russian diplomacy bluntly calls "concrete.".
This demand for concrete action changes the very fabric of what is expected of a papal legate. It forces us to ask what a Church that refuses the role of state mediator, while accepting for over three years to carry lists of prisoners and registers of children separated from their families, can and should contribute. It also compels us to consider the weight of words that have no weapon other than words themselves, when faced with an interlocutor who measures results in figures and dates.
Pressure calculated four days before departure
What Karassine actually said, and what he didn't say
To understand the shift that occurred this week, we must carefully reread the initial statement made by the Russian senator on August 19. Karasin had then spoken of "interesting proposals" likely to produce "positive developments," a deliberately vague phrase that left it to Rome to define the content of its offer. The hardening of the stance observed this week—the explicit mention of the cases of prisoners and displaced Ukrainian children as specific demands—narrows the scope. It is no longer an open invitation to exercise diplomatic common sense; it is a list of specifically named issues on which Moscow expects Rome to take a position with identifiable measures.
This rhetorical gradation is never innocent in the hushed vocabulary of diplomatic circles. It indicates that the Russian side has chosen to set, publicly and even before Archbishop Gallagher's plane has taken off, the terms of an exchange whose narrative it intends to control. If the visit results in concrete announcements on these two issues, Moscow will be able to claim diplomatic credit; if it fails to achieve this result, the responsibility for the failure will be implicitly shifted onto the Holy See, deemed incapable of translating its neutrality into effectiveness. It is a game of asymmetrical pressure, where the Church, which has never claimed the power to coerce, nevertheless finds itself measured against a set of specifications it did not itself draft.
The agenda is becoming clearer, along with the pressure.
In the days following Karasin's statement, the visit's agenda became significantly more packed. The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would receive Archbishop Gallagher on August 25, the very first day of his visit, for discussions on "the current state and prospects of bilateral cooperation between Russia and the Vatican," as well as on "international issues of mutual interest." Two days later, on August 27 at 7:00 p.m., the British archbishop would preside over a Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the largest Catholic church in Moscow—a gesture that, far from being a mere protocol ritual, reaffirmed that this visit remained, above all, that of a pastor, even when it was being negotiated as a state meeting.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for his part, sought to temper expectations on one specific point: no meeting with President Vladimir Putin is currently planned, although, in his words, "there will certainly be some form of communication." This planned absence of a high-level summit implicitly confirms that Moscow intends to treat this visit as a technical and humanitarian step, not as a major political gesture—which, paradoxically, lends even more weight to the two humanitarian issues that Karasin has highlighted. If the Kremlin is not personally involved, it is perhaps precisely because the groundwork laid by Gallagher must remain confined to what Vatican diplomacy does best: quietly and effectively conveying concrete cases of human suffering.
Two cases that cannot be measured in the same way.
Prisoners and displaced children, although frequently linked in diplomatic discourse, require very different approaches, and this is perhaps where the real difficulty of the mission entrusted to Archbishop Gallagher lies. Prisoner exchanges rely on a relatively well-defined mechanism: lists of names submitted by both parties, often reciprocal negotiations, and a timetable that can be finalized in a matter of weeks when the political will exists on both sides. The Holy See has already submitted thousands of names and facilitated several exchanges, with results that even Russian diplomacy has publicly praised in the past.
The issue of displaced children follows a much slower and more painful logic. According to the most recent estimates, relayed by the Ukrainian authorities, more than 19,500 minors have been transferred from occupied or border areas to Russian territory since February 2022; to date, only about 1,350 of them have been able to be repatriated, thanks in particular to the joint mediation of the Holy See, Qatar and South Africa. This figure, however modest it may be compared to the scale of the problem, measures the difficulty of a task which involves identifying each child, finding their family, verifying their consent or that of their guardians, and coordinating a transfer across a front line which remains, four years after the start of the war, one of the deadliest in Europe since 1945. To demand "concrete proposals" from Bishop Gallagher on this matter in four days of visit is to ignore, whether intentionally or not, the very nature of the patient work required to protect children in wartime.
What the Church can offer when asked for proof
Words spoken with restraint versus words demanded
There is, in this Russian demand for tangible results, a profound tension with what Scripture itself teaches about the nature of the spoken word. The Book of Ecclesiastes warns against speaking hastily before God and before men: «Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few» (Ecclesiastes 5:1). This wisdom, born in a religious context quite different from contemporary diplomacy, nevertheless illuminates with striking accuracy the stance that the Holy See has always adopted in the face of pressure to produce rapid announcements: better is a few words spoken and kept than a multitude of promises whose fulfillment cannot be guaranteed.
This economy of words is not diplomatic timidity, but a spiritual discipline that also applies to political negotiation. When Archbishop Gallagher, after his mission to Ukraine, which took place a little over a month before his visit to Moscow, mentioned the possibility of a visit by Pope Leo XIV to Ukraine, he was careful to specify: «The Holy Father takes this invitation very seriously; for our part, we will study the conditions in order to determine the most fruitful timing and arrangements.» This prudence, far from being an admission of weakness, is, on the contrary, the very condition of future credibility: Vatican pronouncements that only announce what they can deliver retain, over time, a weight that spectacular announcements followed by nothing always end up dissolving.
What the pastor can carry where the diplomat fails
The fundamental difference between a papal legate and a state negotiator lies in this: one represents a power and seeks an agreement, the other represents compassion and seeks reconciliation. This distinction, essential for understanding why the Holy See continues to send its representatives to Moscow despite the lack of spectacular results, finds a profound echo in the Letter to the Hebrews, which describes the high priest as one who «is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, since he himself has been tempted in every respect as we are—yet he did not sin» (Hebrews 4:15). A legate who shows compassion before negotiating can travel to Kyiv as well as Moscow, visit the ruins left by an airstrike as well as meet with the authorities who ordered it, without ever being suspected of taking sides—a freedom that only an institution stripped of all political pretensions can still claim in this conflict, which has exhausted almost all other channels of dialogue.
It is precisely this freedom that Karasin is testing by formulating specific, quantified expectations. For if the Holy See responds to this pressure by yielding to the logic of immediate results, it risks losing what constitutes its true strength: the ability to continue speaking to both belligerents when all other channels have closed. But if it absolutely refuses any concrete action, it risks having its neutrality interpreted as ineffectiveness, or even as a form of complicity with diplomatic inertia. It is within this narrow space that Archbishop Gallagher will have to navigate during his four days in Moscow.
Preparing for a larger mission
Several Vatican sources suggest that Archbishop Gallagher's trip is not an isolated one, but rather prepares the ground for a subsequent mission by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Pope's special envoy on the Ukrainian issue since 2023, who could return to Moscow as early as September. The Italian cardinal has already led two missions to Moscow, in June 2023 and then in October 2024, with partial but tangible results regarding the repatriation of the minors and the exchange of information between the two sides. Rome seems keen to avoid this future Zuppi mission ending in another silent failure: hence the importance of this preliminary step entrusted to Gallagher, tasked with gauging the true receptiveness of the Russian authorities before the stakes become too high to fail without consequences.
This logic of meticulous preparation recalls the parable of the mustard seed, this «smallest of all seeds» which, once sown, «grew larger than all the garden plants» (Mark 4:31-32). A four-day visit, without triumphant announcements or resounding communiqués, may seem insignificant in light of the scale of the conflict that has ravaged Ukraine since February 2022. But it is precisely in this patient discretion, in this slow and methodical undermining of accumulated mistrust, that the groundwork is sometimes laid for broader progress—the return of children separated from their families, the release of prisoners, the resumption of a dialogue that, without this preliminary work, would remain forever stuck at the stage of posturing.
The shadow of a vacant seat on the negotiating table
A church-related issue that weighs on the humanitarian situation
Beyond the two humanitarian priorities explicitly mentioned by Karasin, a third issue, less dramatic but just as revealing of the current climate, weighs heavily on this visit: the episcopal succession at the head of the Catholic Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow, vacant since May 2, 2026. Pope Leo XIV had accepted the resignation of Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, who had led the diocese for nineteen years, ten years before the usual canonical age of seventy-five for resignation. "I want to announce that I have resigned for health reasons, which do not allow me to manage this beloved and magnificent diocese as I should," he stated, putting an end to any political speculation. But behind this official explanation, the shadow of a deeper exhaustion looms: two decades spent at the head of one of the most trying missions of world Catholicism, aggravated by the war, by the increasing administrative pressure on foreign nationals in Russia, and by the growing isolation of a small Catholic community surrounded by suspicion.
The Pope's gesture in choosing his temporary successor carries considerable symbolic weight, which few commentators have fully appreciated. Leo XIV did not appoint a new foreign archbishop; he entrusted the office of Apostolic Administrator sede vacante to Auxiliary Bishop Nikolai Dubinin, a Russian Conventual Franciscan, who until then had been leading the northern sector of the diocese from Saint Petersburg. It was this same Bishop Dubinin who, in his capacity as administrator, confirmed this week to the Russian news agency TASS the exact dates of Archbishop Gallagher's stay and specified the arrangements for the Mass scheduled for August 27. To entrust the pastoral responsibility of the only Catholic metropolis in Russia to a son of the country himself, rather than to a prelate from elsewhere, is to affirm that the Catholic Church in Russian soil is not — should not be perceived as — a foreign embassy disguised as a religious institution, but a rooted community, with its own pastors.
A nomination that tests the silence of the patriarchy
This is precisely the point that Archbishop Gallagher will have to explore during his stay in Moscow: the receptiveness of the Russian authorities, both Orthodox civil and ecclesiastical, to a possible permanent appointment of a Russian archbishop to head this diocese. The Moscow Patriarchate, whose silence on Gallagher's visit remains as eloquent as its past pronouncements on Catholic-Orthodox tensions, is closely observing this development. The Russian Orthodox Church maintains an ambivalent relationship with Catholicism, characterized by cautious coexistence and a historical rivalry that has never fully extinguished, where any Catholic episcopal appointment in Russia can be interpreted according to two opposing lenses: a gesture of appeasement that recognizes the canonical primacy of Orthodox territory, or, on the contrary, an even more cunning way for Rome to establish itself permanently in a space it has traditionally considered its exclusive domain.
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Access the folder →This ecclesiastical dimension of the visit is closely linked to the humanitarian dimension emphasized by Karasin. A signal of goodwill on the issue of displaced children or prisoners could, in turn, facilitate Russian acceptance of a normalization of the Catholic presence in Russia—and conversely, persistent hostility from the Patriarchate could harden the conditions imposed by the civil authorities on humanitarian matters. These two seemingly distinct aspects are in reality interconnected in the subtle balancing act that Moscow seeks to maintain between its national Church and its foreign policy.
The precedent of November 2021 as a measure of time traveled
Archbishop Gallagher is no stranger to Moscow. He had already visited in November 2021, a few weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, to meet with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov—the same Lavrov he would meet again on August 25, five years later, in a world profoundly reshaped by war. This precedent gives his current visit a particular resonance: he is returning to a city he left before the world was turned upside down, and he is coming back after that same world has been engulfed for more than four years in a conflict that has displaced millions of people and torn apart the ties between the Eastern and Western Churches.
The timing is no coincidence either: this Moscow visit comes just over a month after a similar mission led by the same archbishop to Lviv, Berdichev, and Kyiv, where he visited the site of a Russian airstrike that killed civilians and met with President Volodymyr Zelensky. He thus carries with him, from one capital to the other, the same perspective, the same attentiveness—and it is precisely this symmetry of attention that lends him credibility with both sides. An emissary who mourns with the families of Kyiv and celebrates Mass in Moscow in the same week conveys, without explicitly stating it, a message more powerful than any official declaration: that of a Church that refuses to choose sides in suffering.
Lectio divina
«Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter a word before God.» Ecclesiastes 5:1
How many times have you been asked for immediate proof of your goodwill, a tangible word, a quantifiable action, when your heart knew that the truth needed time to mature within you? Have you ever given in to this pressure to produce, to prove, to deliver a result before the deadline, at the risk of betraying what you truly held dear? And you, do you know how to wait for someone else's word without demanding that it conform to your schedule? What would you do if you were ordered today to transform your patience into visible proof?
Lord, you who are in heaven while I am on earth, teach me the rarity of true words. You see my eagerness, my desire to prove too quickly what I still carry in seed. Grant me the slowness of one who weighs each word before releasing it to the noise of the world. Make my silence fertile ground, not an escape. May my words, when they finally come, be ripe fruit and not a green promise. Keep me from yielding to the demands of those who want results without waiting for the truth.
A tiny seed resting in the open palm of a hand that is not yet closing.
✝ Biblical references
2 passages · 2 books
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)
Jesus, high priest of the new covenant: Christ's superiority over Moses and the Temple.
→ Explore the Hebrew Codex- Moscow waits, Rome listens: diplomacy with an attentive ear
- Colombia: When a shepherd settles under the rubble, the Church reveals its true face
- A key cannot break down doors: Leo XIV and the grammar of communion
- The unity that is built and the one that is broken: Leo XIV, Bartholomew and the shadow of Écône
The Son of Man came to serve and to give his life as a ransom. (Mark 10:45)
The Gospel of action: Jesus the powerful servant, revealed as the Son of God on the cross.
→ Explore the Marc Codex- The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, so that the birds of the air make nests in its branches (Mt 13:31-35)
- Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? (Mark 4:35-41)
- The man who scatters the seed on the ground, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed grows, he does not know how (Mark 4:26-34)
- The lamp is brought to be placed on the lampstand. The measure you use will be used for you (Mark 4:21-25).
- Behold, the sower went out to sow (Mark 4:1-20)
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In Ukraine, Catholics today represent a significant minority, primarily through the Greek Catholic Church and the Latin communities in the west of the country. Christian roots go back to the conversion of…
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