Could the Vatican host Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations? And could Pope Leo himself become involved? At least some signs seem to be pointing in that direction.

Pope Leo XIV, who was elected on May 8 as the successor to Pope Francis, has signaled that the Vatican might be willing to mediate. This was further reinforced by Italy's head of government, Giorgia Meloni, who announced on the social media platform X on May 20 that she had "spoken by phone with the Holy Father about the next steps that need to be taken to build a just and lasting peace in Ukraine."

US President Donald Trump and some European heads of state had asked her to "assess the Holy See's willingness" to host peace negotiations. And Pope Leo has confirmed his willingness to facilitate talks in the Vatican between both sides of the conflict.

In fact, it was Leo who first brought this vision to light. When he stepped onto the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica as the new pope on the evening of May 8, largely unknown to the public, he began his speech with the word "peace," echoing Jesus' first words as recorded in the Bible after his resurrection.

No other word appeared more frequently in the first speech by the 267th pope than "peace," with Leo sketching out the picture of a "peace that is unarmed and disarming." Since then, journalists have been discussing how this statement should be interpreted: in terms of spiritual detachment or concrete global politics.

Leo provided further signals on the day of his inaugural Mass on May 18, when he made his very first formal visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife. The Ukrainian president had been among the first to congratulate the new pope by telephone the evening after his election. After the inauguration, Leo, the first US-born pope, also received US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their wives.

The official Vatican video of the meeting between Leo and Vance shows the politician handing over a large envelope: a greeting from Donald Trump. Questions about Ukraine also circulated around this meeting with the two Catholic politicians.

This is especially notable given that it took Pope Francis a considerable amount of time after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, to clearly criticize the aggressor. Up until that point, he had only deplored the suffering of the population on both sides, leading to criticism for only mentioning the victims and not the perpetrators.

What challenges would Vatican face?

It was clear that Francis did not want to sever ties with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a former KGB man and close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the same time, Zelenskyy made it very clear after the death of 88-year-old Francis on April 21 that the Vatican had repeatedly facilitated prisoner exchanges between the warring countries without much publicity, and had also supported Ukrainian children who had been abducted to Russia.

After Trump's erratic and hapless attempts to persuade Putin to back down, politicians are now turning their attention to Rome. But would that even be possible — diplomatically, logistically and in terms of security?

The Vatican's administrative body, the Curia, organized and managed two events of global significance with hundreds of government officials within three weeks — namely, Francis' funeral and Leo's inauguration. The image of Trump and Zelenskyy seated on two plain chairs in a smaller chapel of St. Peter's Basilica, on the sidelines of Francis' funeral ceremony, drew global attention.

Any security matters that would overburden the 120 or so men of the Papal Swiss Guard always become the responsibility of the Italian state. According to Meloni, her country is "prepared to play its part to facilitate contacts and work toward peace."

Several times since February 2022, Francis dispatched one of his most trusted cardinals, the current head of the Italian Bishops' Conference, Matteo Maria Zuppi, to Moscow and Kyiv as a mediator, and once also to Beijing and Washington. And in the final weeks of Francis' papacy, another cardinal also traveled to visit crisis areas in Ukraine.

Could mediation start in a matter of weeks?

If both sides are willing, insiders say, an attempt at mediation could start in the Vatican within three or four weeks. But it's also clear that the pope will not be continuously present at the actual talks. Those talks involve dialogue on a practical level. The last time  Putin visited the Vatican for talks was in June 2019.

Benjamin Dahlke, a Catholic theologian at the University of Eichstätt and one of Germany's most knowledgeable experts on the church in the US, is "cautious" about the possibility of the Vatican mediating between Russia and Ukraine. During his election campaign, President Trump announced that he would "solve the war within a day. That obviously didn't work out," the 43-year-old told DW. In his opinion, Trump is "at a loss" and is looking to the Vatican "as a new player in order to create new movement."

Stefan Mückl, a specialist in church law who teaches at Rome's Opus Dei University, emphasized the importance of the Vatican's neutral role. "Pope Leo will adhere to the Holy See's established position, namely strict neutrality, without indicating any intrinsic preference," he told Cologne's Domradio radio station on May 22.

Regina Elsner, an expert on Eastern Christianity who teaches in Münster, expressed a more critical view on Catholic Domradio. Elsner believes there is a chance that the church headquarters will be accepted as a neutral negotiating venue, together with Italy. But, she pointed out, Pope Francis lost a lot of credibility with the Ukrainian side in the last few years of his pontificate due to his benevolent attitude toward Moscow.

Who is the pope's chief diplomat

Every word that Pope Leo now utters in public is being closely monitored around the world, especially with regard to the conflict in Eastern Europe.

There is a good chance that his "foreign minister," the 71-year-old Archbishop Paul Gallagher, who has been serving the Vatican for 40 years and has been responsible for relations with states for the last decade, will soon begin traveling for talks that are rarely — or never — made public.

US Secretary of State Rubio was one of the people who met with Gallagher on his trip to Rome last week. According to US media reports, the politician spoke afterwards with gratitude of the Vatican's willingness to play a "constructive and positive role."

This article was originally written in German.

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