ROME: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that the Vatican could be a venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks, taking up the Holy See’s longstanding offer after Pope Leo XIV vowed to personally make “every effort” to help end the war.
Speaking to reporters in Rome before meeting with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Vatican point man on Ukraine, Rubio said that he would be discussing potential ways the Vatican could help, “the status of the talks, the updates after yesterday (Friday) and the path forward.”
Asked if the Vatican could be a peace broker, Rubio replied: “I wouldn’t call it broker, but it’s certainly — I think it’s a place that both sides would be comfortable going.”
“So we’ll talk about all of that and obviously always grateful to the Vatican for their willingness to play this constructive and positive role,” said Rubio, who also met Saturday with the Vatican secretary of state and foreign minister.
The Vatican has a tradition of diplomatic neutrality and had long offered its services, and venues, to try to help facilitate talks, but found itself sidelined during the all-out war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.
Pope Francis, who occasionally angered both Kyiv and Moscow with his off-the-cuff comments, had entrusted Zuppi with a mandate to try to find paths of peace. But the mandate seemed to narrow to help facilitate the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia, and the Holy See also was able to mediate some prisoner exchanges.
During their meeting at the US Embassy in Rome, Rubio thanked Zuppi for the Vatican’s humanitarian role, citing in particular prisoner swaps and the return of Ukrainian children. Rubio “emphasized the importance of continued collaboration under the new leadership of Pope Leo XIV,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Leo, who was elected history’s first American pope on May 8, took up Francis’ call for peace in Ukraine in his first Sunday noon blessing as pope. He appealed for all sides to do whatever possible to reach “an authentic, just and lasting peace.”
Leo, who as a bishop in Peru had called Russia’s war an “imperialist invasion,” vowed this week personally to “make every effort so that this peace may prevail.”
In a speech to eastern rite Catholics, including the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine, Leo begged warring sides to meet and negotiate.
“The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face to face, to talk to one another, so that peoples everywhere may once more find hope and recover the dignity they deserve, the dignity of peace,” he said.
The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, repeated the Vatican’s offer to serve as a venue for direct talks, saying the failure of negotiations in Istanbul to reach a ceasefire this week was “tragic.”
“We had hoped it could start a process, slow but positive, toward a peaceful solution to the conflict,” Parolin said on the sidelines of a conference. “But instead we’re back to the beginning.”
Asked concretely what such an offer would entail, Parolin said that the Vatican could serve as a venue for a direct meeting between the two sides.
“One would aim to arrive at this, that at least they talk. We’ll see what happens. It’s an offer of a place,” he said.
“We have always said, repeated to the two sides that we are available to you, with all the discretion needed,” Parolin said.
The Vatican scored what was perhaps its greatest diplomatic achievement of the Francis pontificate when it facilitated the talks between the United States and Cuba in 2014 that resulted in the resumption of diplomatic relations.
The Holy See has also often hosted far less secret diplomatic initiatives, such as when it brought together the rival leaders of South Sudan in 2019. The encounter was made famous by the image of Francis bending down to kiss their feet to beg them to make peace.
Perhaps the Holy See’s most critical diplomatic initiative came during the peak of the Cuban missile crisis when, in the fall of 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered a secret deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba that were soon detected by US spy planes.
As the Kennedy administration considered its response, with the threat of nuclear war looming, Pope John XXIII pleaded for peace in a public radio address, in a speech to Vatican ambassadors and also wrote privately to Kennedy and Khruschev, appealing to their love of their people to stand down.
Many historians have credited John XXIII’s appeals with helping both sides step back from the brink of nuclear war.
Vatican could be a venue for Russia-Ukraine talks, Rubio says, after pope renews an offer to help
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Vatican could be a venue for Russia-Ukraine talks, Rubio says, after pope renews an offer to help
- In a speech to eastern rite Catholics on May 8, Pope Leo XIV begged Russia and Ukraine to meet and negotiate
- The Vatican has a tradition of diplomatic neutrality and had long offered its services, and venues, to try to help facilitate talks
What to know about the search for the Brown University shooting suspect
- The video from more than hour before the attack shows the suspect running at times in quiet residential streets near campus
PROVIDENCE, R.I.: With the Brown University shooter still on the loose Tuesday, authorities released new video of a suspect and police fanned out to Providence schools to reassure parents, kids and teachers as investigators pushed for new evidence that might help them crack the case.
Here’s a look at what to know about the attack and the search:
Search on after new video and description of suspect
Authorities released a video timeline and a slightly clearer image of the man suspected in Saturday’s attack in an engineering building classroom, where two students were killed and nine were wounded. The video from more than hour before the attack shows the suspect running at times in quiet residential streets near campus.
In videos previously made public, the suspect’s face was masked or turned away and authorities were only able to give a vague description of him as having a stocky build and about 5 feet, 8 inches (173 centimeters) tall.
The gunman fired more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.
Police have asked the public for tips, and said they had received about 200 by Tuesday. Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, asked the public Tuesday to look at their camera systems in the area where the person was walking to review any footage that goes back a week.
Authorities on Sunday released a different person of interest after determining he wasn’t behind the attack, which happened in a first-floor classroom where students were cramming for an exam. Providence police spokeswoman Kristy dosReis said the man’s detention didn’t affect the ongoing investigation.
Police fan out to local schools
Tensions remain high in Providence. Ten state troopers were assigned to support the local police sent to beef up security at schools, district Superintendent Javier Montañez said. The district said it canceled after-school activities, sporting events and field trips this week “out of an abundance of caution.”
The attack and the shooter’s escape also have raised questions about campus security, including a lack of security cameras, and led to calls for better locks on campus doors. But some said what they called the real issue needs to be addressed.
“The issue isn’t the doors, it’s the guns,” said Zoe Kass, a senior who fled the engineering building Saturday.
Authorities have said that one reason they lacked video of the shooter was because Brown’s older engineering building doesn’t have many cameras.
University defends response
Brown President Christina Paxson defended the university’s response, saying it was deeply committed to the safety, security and well-being of its students. She also said the campus is equipped with 1,200 cameras.
“I have been deeply saddened by people questioning that,” she said Tuesday. “As time goes on, there is a natural instinct to assign responsibility for tragic events like this. Anxiety here is very natural, but the shooter is responsible.”
Paxson said the university has two security systems. One system is activated at a time of emergency and sent out text messages, phone calls and emails that, in this shooting, reached 20,000 individuals. The other system features three sirens across campus, but Paxson said that would not be activated in an active shooter situation.
“Those get activated when there is a broad scale emergency, and we want people to rush into buildings,” she said. “In the case of an active shooter, activating that system could have caused people to rush into Barus and Holley.”
When pressed by a reporter who noted the university website says the sirens can be used when there is an active shooter, Paxson reaffirmed she didn’t think it would be used in that situation.
“It depends on the circumstances and where the active shooter would be but you don’t want to ever get people rushing into buildings that might be the site of an active shooter,” she said.
Details about the victims emerge
Two of the wounded students had been released from the hospital as of Tuesday, Brown spokeswoman Amanda McGregor said. Of the seven others, one remained in critical condition, five were in critical but stable condition and one was in stable condition, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said.
One of the wounded, 18-year-old freshman Spencer Yang of New York City, told the New York Times and the Brown Daily Herald there was a scramble after the gunman entered the room. Yang said he wound up on the ground and was shot in the leg.
The students who died were MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old freshman from Brandermill, Virginia, and Ella Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore from a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.
Jacob Spears, 18, a freshman from Evans, Georgia, was shot in the stomach, “but through sheer adrenaline and courage, he managed to run outside, where he was aided by others,” according to a GoFundMe site organized for him.
Durham Academy, a private K-12 school in Durham, North Carolina, confirmed that a recent graduate, Kendall Turner, was wounded.
