Zuppi in Moscow: Peace begins with a name and a returned child

Jeremiah 31:15–17

¹⁵Thus says the Lord: A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping: Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted, for her children, because they are no more. ¹⁶Thus says the Lord: Refrain your voice from lamenting and your eyes from weeping, for your work will be rewarded, declares the Lord, they will return from the land of the enemy. ¹⁷There is hope for your last days, declares the Lord, and your children will return to their borders.

Hebrews 13:3

³Remember the prisoners, as if you were prisoners too, and those who are mistreated, as if you too were in a body.

Psalms 84:11

¹¹For one day in your courts is better than a thousand; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

A diplomacy that moves forward without fanfare

What happened, finally

A visit that has been announced is still only an intention. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi's visit to Moscow, from September 28 to 30, has now taken place, and that is the new development. It had been mentioned at the beginning of the month. It comes after Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher's mission at the end of August and after the Cardinal's trip to Ukraine in July. In a war that wears words thin, this transition from promise to presence is already a powerful act.

The Gospel understands the difference between saying and doing. Christ did not send his disciples to proclaim principles from platforms. He sent them into people's homes. A papal envoy who crosses the threshold of Moscow, sits opposite presidential advisor Yuri Ushakov, and examines, in his own words, "all requests emanating from both the Ukrainian and Russian sides," is performing a similar act. He is not settling the war, but he is refusing to let it close all doors.

We must consider what this entails. Zuppi is not arriving as a mediator proposing a plan, and he has stated this: his task is to support the parties' efforts regarding children, prisoner exchanges, and the problems of civilians. The modesty of this mandate is its strength. It shifts the question of who is right to another, more urgent one: who is suffering tonight, and what can be done for them?.

Three journeys, one single thread

June 2023, October 2024, September 2026: three missions to Moscow in over three years. One might interpret this as a failure, since the war continues. One can also interpret it as a sign of fidelity. The mandate received from Pope Francis was confirmed by Pope Leo XIV, and this continuity from one pontificate to the next speaks volumes about the Church. It does not change course according to the whims of current events. It holds to its commitment like a sentinel holds its post.

The initial missions had left tangible results. In 2023, the channel opened by the cardinal facilitated prisoner exchanges, including those of Catholic priests. It also enabled the return home of some Ukrainian children transferred to Russia. These results are modest compared to the figures, as Kyiv cites more than nineteen thousand minors involved. But the Kingdom, according to Jesus, is like a mustard seed. In the arithmetic of war, a child returned is a drop. In God's arithmetic, it is a world restored.

The patience required for these back-and-forth exchanges also has a pedagogical value. It teaches us that trust is built through small checks: a list submitted, a name confirmed, an exchange completed. Diplomats speak of "confidence-building measures." Christian language would say rather that faith is proven by works. Each trip adds a stone to a bridge that no one yet sees in its entirety.

What discretion means

The Holy See is sometimes criticized for its hushed silence. It's important to understand what this discretion protects. A list of prisoners is not a matter for a press release. It's a series of faces, of families waiting, of negotiations that would fail if made public too soon. Cardinal Zuppi has also clarified that the goal is not to find political solutions, but to directly help those affected by the conflict.

This reserve is not timidity. Scripture warns us that there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. Christ himself, before his judges, sometimes chose silence, and this silence was not an absence. Papal diplomacy follows this principle: to speak out when the truth demands it, and to act discreetly when the life of a captive depends on it. Both are forms of charity, and the art lies in knowing which is appropriate at which time.

However, this discretion comes at a price. It exposes the Church to the incomprehension of those who would like clear condemnations, as well as those who accuse it of complacency. The Holy See accepts this twofold suspicion. It knows that an open door is better than a verdict pronounced from the outside, and it also knows that keeping this door open never absolves us from naming evil. The balance is fragile. It is the balance of all evangelical mediation.

Captives and children: the heart of the mission

Rachel and the sons who return

At the heart of this mission are children separated from their families. The two sides disagree on the terminology: evacuation for one, deportation for the other. But neither denies the pain. A father searches, a mother waits, a child grows up far from their language and home. The Church does not need to arbitrate the language of chancelleries to acknowledge this suffering, which is one of the oldest in the Bible.

The prophet Jeremiah heard it: «A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted» (Jeremiah 31:15). But the text does not stop at the lament. God responds: «Restrain your weeping, for your labor will be rewarded… there is hope for your future: your children will return to their own land» (Jeremiah 31:16-17). This promise does not negate the exile. It affirms that exile does not have the final word, and it gives hope a precise address: the return of the children.

This is why the cardinal's task is not a mere humanitarian detail compared to "real" politics. It lies at the heart of what Scripture deems essential. When a child is reunited with its mother, Jeremiah's words cease to be a distant prophecy and become a reality. No peace can be called just if it overlooks these absences. And every future agreement will be judged, in light of the Gospel, by how it has treated these little ones, whom we must never despise.

The prisoners, brothers in humanity

The other issue concerns prisoners of war, both Ukrainian and Russian. Here again, the Church maintains a demanding stance: it does not divide captives into good and bad. A prisoner of war is a man whose dignity remains intact, and his mother weeps in the same way on both sides of the front line. This is perhaps the most difficult position to make heard in times of war, and yet it is the position of the Gospel.

The Letter to the Hebrews states it with disarming simplicity: «Remember those in prison as if you were prisoners with them» (Hebrews 13:3). This phrase doesn't just ask for compassion. It demands identification, that is, putting oneself in the place of the one who is imprisoned. It specifies neither their nationality, nor their uniform, nor their crime. It simply says: remember. Perhaps Zuppi's entire mission lies in this verb, for to remember the captives is to refuse to let them disappear into the anonymity of statistics.

There is a lesson here for each of us, far removed from Moscow. Think of the last time you prayed for a prisoner, here or elsewhere, whose ideas and choices you did not share. This prayer is difficult, and that is why it is Christian. The Church does not ask us to forget justice; it asks us not to forget humanity. Prisoner exchanges are rarely spectacular, but they give voice to silent homes, and each return is a victory over the logic of war.

The number and the name

It is tempting to get lost in the numbers: nineteen thousand children according to Kyiv, thousands of prisoners, millions displaced. These numbers convey the scale of the tragedy, but they can also numb us. The Gospel resists this numbness with the parable of the lost sheep. The shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to search for just one, and Jesus concludes that the Father does not want a single one of these little ones to be lost (Mt 18:14).

This logic scandalizes accountants and delights mothers. It is the one Cardinal Zuppi followed when he went to Moscow to examine specific requests, case by case. Conventional diplomacy reasons in terms of power dynamics. The Church's reasoning is based on personal names. It is convinced that each person brought home is a more powerful argument against war than any speech about it.

An example helps to understand. Imagine a grandmother who hasn't heard from her grandson in two years. For her, grand strategic balances don't exist. There's an empty chair at the table and a door she keeps ajar at night. The cardinal's mission is directed to this woman before it is directed to the chancelleries. And that's how the Church understands its place in the world: at the service of the empty chairs.

A peace that is being woven, step by step

Ceasefire and patience

While Cardinal Zuppi was working in Moscow, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State, was advocating for an immediate ceasefire on all fronts. The two approaches were not contradictory; they complemented each other like two hands in a single gesture. One, public and clear, reiterated the goal: to silence the guns. The other, patient and practical, prepared the ground by repairing, piece by piece, what the war had torn apart.

The psalmist gave this conjunction its most beautiful image: «Love and truth meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other» (Psalm 84:11). Notice that the verse does not choose. It does not ask for love without truth, which would be a complacent peace, nor truth without love, which would be a tribunal without mercy. It brings them together. True peace requires that evil be named and that a hand be extended, in the same movement and with the same seriousness.

This requirement explains the dual tone of the Vatican's pronouncements. On the one hand, a clear call for a ceasefire. On the other, a willingness to listen to all demands, Russian as well as Ukrainian. Those who see ambiguity in this are mistaken. It is a matter of discipline: refusing the confinement of camps, without abandoning the distinction between aggressor and victim, and keeping the door open precisely because there is a desire for the war to end.

The legacy of a tradition

This approach is not improvised. For over a century, popes have sought to offer humanity a forum for dialogue when weapons drown out all other voices. John XXIII, at the height of the Cold War, called for negotiation and, with the encyclical Pacem in terris, inspired a vision of peace founded on truth, justice, charity, and freedom. This intuition still guides the work of Vatican diplomacy today.

Pope Francis gave this tradition a concrete form by entrusting Matteo Zuppi with a humanitarian mission. Leo XIV confirmed it, a sign that the Church does not treat peace as a matter of circumstance. It is a vocation: to be, in a fractured world, one of the few institutions able to speak to all parties without disowning them. This unique situation demands constant humility, because credibility is earned over time, not through fanfare.

This can be seen as a modern form of what Saint Paul called the ministry of reconciliation. The Apostle affirmed that God entrusted this task to us by reconciling us to himself. No one is so naive as to imagine immediate reconciliation between two peoples who have done so much harm to one another. But the Church remains convinced that all reconciliation begins with small gestures, and that an exchange of prisoners, unknowingly, paves the way for broader conversations.

What the Church asks of each person

Should we then leave the peace to the diplomats and cardinals? Certainly not. Cardinal Zuppi does not replace your prayers, nor does he absolve the faithful of all responsibility. The Moscow mission is supported by thousands of quiet prayers and the concrete charity of parishes that welcome refugees. Without this foundation, the envoy would be speaking into the void. With it, his voice carries further than he himself.

In practical terms, three actions are within everyone's reach. The first is to pray specifically for a captive or a separated child, refusing to pray only for one's own family. The second is to support organizations that assist displaced persons, whether near or far. The third is to be mindful of one's own language, because war also begins with the words we use to speak about others. Each of these actions is small, but peace is built precisely in this way.

This morning, as the visit draws to a close, one thing remains clear: peace will not come from a single journey. It will come from an accumulation of loyalties, of which Zuppi's mission is one part. The Church has no armed divisions, but it has a memory, a network of prayer, and the word of God that promises the return of the children. It moves forward with this, without illusion or despair, repeating that a single life returned to its family justifies all journeys.

Lectio divina

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