Cardinal Zuppi concluded his visit to MoscowCardinal Zuppi visits MoscowCardinal Zuppi visits KievWashington is the next stop for Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Bishops' Conference.
The trip is part of the peace mission that Zuppi has received from Pope Francis "to promote peace in Ukraine and aims to exchange ideas and opinions on the current tragic situation and to support initiatives in the humanitarian field to alleviate the suffering of the most affected and fragile people, especially children," as the Holy See said in the statement issued to announce this trip.
Archbishop Zuppi departs on July 17, 2023 and will be in the American capital until July 19, 2023, sent by the Holy Father.
This is the third international trip that the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna has made in recent months as part of the mission entrusted by the Pope to promote and encourage a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. More than a year after the beginning of Russia's invasion of the Ukrainian nation, the victims are counted in the thousands and the displaced in the millions.
In Kiev and Moscow
Zuppi was in Kiev at the beginning of last June. On this first trip, his objective was to "listen in depth to the Ukrainian authorities on possible ways to reach a just peace and to support gestures of humanity that would contribute to easing tensions".
A few days later, at the end of June, Moscow was visited by the Cardinal on a trip that aimed to "encourage gestures of humanity, which could contribute to favoring a solution to the current tragic situation and finding ways to achieve a just peace".
Although the Holy See has described the results of the two visits as "satisfactory", the reality is that the conflict is still ongoing and there seems to be no hope for a cessation of the attacks in the near future.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi
Cardinal Zuppi, of Roman origin, comes from the Sant'Egidio community: in 1973, as a student at the Virgilio classical high school, he met the founder Andrea Riccardi. From that moment on, he became involved in the various activities of the community, from the popular schools for marginalized children in the slums of Rome, to initiatives for the elderly alone and not self-sufficient, for immigrants and the homeless, the terminally ill and nomads, the disabled and drug addicts, prisoners and victims of conflicts.
A graduate in Literature and Philosophy from the University of La Sapienza, he graduated in Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University. For ten years he was parish priest of the Roman basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere and general ecclesiastical assistant to the community of Sant'Egidio: he was mediator in Mozambique in the process that led to peace after more than seventeen years of bloody civil war.
In 2012, after two years as parish priest in Torre Angela, Benedict XVI appointed him auxiliary bishop of Rome. Francis elected him archbishop of Bologna in October 2015 and four years later, on October 5, 2019, created him a cardinal.
