Rubio speaks with Vatican secretary of state about escalation of Russia-Ukraine war, peacemaking efforts

The conversation comes days after Russia launched one of its largest combined missile and drone attacks since the start of the war.

The Vatican's Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin attends a plenary session at the Summit on peace in Ukraine, at the luxury Burgenstock resort, near Lucerne, on June 16, 2024. The two-day gathering brings together Ukrainian President and more than 50 other heads of state and government, to try to work out a way towards a peace process for Ukraine -- albeit without Russia. (Photo by ALESSANDRO DELLA VALLE / POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALESSANDRO DELLA VALLE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

McKenna Snow

July 9, 2026 

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a conversation July 9 with the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin regarding the war between Ukraine and Russia and efforts to achieve peace.

“The two leaders discussed efforts to achieve a negotiated end to the Russia-Ukraine war,” U.S. Secretary of State spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a July 9 statement.

No additional details were provided.

The war in Ukraine saw a dramatic surge of violence earlier this month when Russia launched a missile and drone attack overnight, killing at least 21 people and injuring more than 80 in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials, as Zeale News reported. This attack marked one of Russia’s largest combined missile and drone attacks since the war began, according to the report. More than 52,000 people sheltered overnight in Kyiv’s metro system the night of July 1 following a warning from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to seek shelter ahead of impending Russian strikes.

Reuters reported July 9 that Russian military experts have also been discussing escalation of the conflict, including potentially striking European targets “such as NATO bases in Baltic countries.”

“Such a step would risk drawing Russia into direct confrontation with the U.S.-led alliance, testing the NATO commitment that an attack on one member nation constitutes an attack on all,” Reuters added.

However, Ukraine has recently carried out strikes on oil refineries, storage depots and ports in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine, causing Russian civilians to bear stark fuel shortages, according to Reuters. A source that regularly meets with President Vladimir Putin told Reuters that “Ukraine's recent successes, however, have made Putin more angry and more determined to give a tough response,” the outlet reported.

Two sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters on the condition of anonymity that Putin was more likely to escalate the war in the upcoming months rather than negotiate peace. President Donald Trump has had separate phone calls with Putin and Zelenskyy within the past week. Trump also met with Zelenskyy in person July 8 in Turkey during the NATO summit.

Rubio met Cardinal Parolin at the Vatican in May 2025 and communicated with him earlier this year about international situations. In January, the two had a conversation about promoting peace and religious freedom around the globe and efforts to improve humanitarian situations particularly in Venezuela. Pigott said at the time that during that conversation, the two leaders also “reaffirmed their commitment to deepening cooperation between the United States and the Holy See in addressing shared priorities around the world.”

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Pope Leo Invited to Join Trump's 'Board of Peace', Cardinal Says

REUTERS
Pope Leo XIV greets a child during the weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall, at the Vatican, January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Yara Nardi


VATICAN CITY, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Pope ‌Leo ​is among world leaders ‌invited to join U.S. President Donald Trump's "Board ​of Peace", Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's top diplomatic official, ‍said on Wednesday.

Leo, the first ​U.S. pope and a critic of some of ​Trump's ⁠policies, is evaluating the invitation, he said.

"The pope has received an invitation and we are considering what to do," Parolin told journalists. "I believe it will be something that requires a ‌bit of time for consideration before giving a response."

The ​board ‌was initially aimed at ‍ending ⁠the conflict in Gaza, however Trump has said it will have a much broader remit and resolve conflicts globally.

While some countries, such as Israel and Egypt, have accepted the invitation, a number of others have expressed caution with diplomats warning it ​could harm the work of the United Nations.

The Vatican press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Parolin's remarks.

Leo, who has shown a robust but quiet diplomatic style since being elected pope last May, has decried conditions for Palestinians living in Gaza several times, including in a forceful sermon on Christmas Eve.

The pope, leader of the world's ​1.4 billion Catholics, rarely joins international boards. The Vatican has an extensive diplomatic service and is a permanent observer at the United Nations, often taking part ​in debates.


(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Janet Lawrence)


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How Vatican diplomats tried to resolve the Trump-Maduro standoff

by Kevin Clarke

January 16, 2026

Pope Leo XIV greets Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, during a meeting at the Vatican with priests who staff nunciatures and other Vatican diplomatic missions around the world Nov. 17, 2025. Credit: CNS photo/Vatican Media



American Catholics may have been surprised to learn through a report in The Washington Post of the significant involvement of Vatican diplomats in negotiations to resolve the standoff between the Trump administration and the Maduro government in Venezuela.

While the rest of the Catholic world enjoyed its Christmas Eve, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin was meeting with Brian Burch, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, discussing a deal that would allow Venezuela’s President Nicholás Maduro to escape to a comfortable exile in Russia before shots might be fired. Vatican officials in the end were unable to persuade Mr. Maduro to accept that option before his defenestration by U.S. Special Forces on Jan. 3.

Veteran Vatican journalist Victor Gaetan was less surprised by The Post’s account of the frenetic last-minute diplomacy aimed at the peaceful removal of Mr. Maduro. Mr. Gaetan is the author of God’s Diplomats: Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy and America’s Armageddon.

He saw in it a familiar example of the Vatican’s engaged and patient diplomacy—though this account offered a few surprises. Among those, Mr. Gaetan was impressed by the apparent reach of Vatican officials into Vladimir Putin’s inner circle in Moscow.

Ukraine asks Vatican to formalise role in return of captive children

Patrick Hudson

25 November 2025, The Tablet

President Zelenskyy made the request in a letter ahead of Pope Leo’s audience with a group of women and children returned from Russian captivity.

President of Ukraine

Cardinal Pietro Parolin said ‘the path to negotiation will be an uphill battle’ and urged that ‘Europe should participate and make its voice heard’ in discussions of the US peace plan.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked the Pope to formalise the Vatican’s role in negotiations for the return of children and civilians detained by Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Zelenskyy made the request in a letter ahead of Pope Leo’s audience on 21 November with a group of women and children returned from Russian captivity. Iryna Vereshchuk, the deputy head of the president’s office who led the group, said they thanked the Pope “for understanding the depth of our wounds and hearing our pleas for help, as well as for his daily humanitarian efforts that enable Ukrainian families to reunite”.

During the visit, Vereshchuk presented the Ukrainian Order of Merit Second Class to the Archbishop of Bologna Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who has led the Vatican’s humanitarian mediation since Pope Francis appointed him as his peace envoy in May 2023. However, Vereshchuk said the Vatican needed to formalise this work “to achieve more”.

“Once the process is formalised we can have proper communications with the Russians, and when we submit a letter through the [Vatican] platform they will have to respond,” she said.

The group also attended a Mass said by the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, organised by the Ukrainian Embassy to the Holy See to commemorate the victims of the Holodomor famine of 1932-33. The cardinal condemned “attacks on electrical infrastructure” which are “forcing thousands of people to live in darkness and cold”.

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Intervention of the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin at the Second Holy See - 6/14/2018

Intervention of the Cardinal Secretary of State at the Second Holy See – Mexico Conference on International Migration”, 14.06.2018


The following is this morning’s intervention by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin at the Second Holy See – Mexico Conference on International Migration”, held at the Casina Pio IV:


Intervention of the Cardinal Secretary of State

Mr. Secretary Videgaray,

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, I cordially welcome you, Mr. Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, and all the distinguished delegates, speakers and participants gathered here, to participate in this meeting that expresses the common interest of the Holy See and the United States of Mexico for the issue of migration.

At the beginning of this Conference, an ideal continuation of the one that took place in Mexico City in 2014, held at the proposal of the Mexican Chancellery and in which I had the honour of participating, we had the opportunity to listen to the message of the Holy Father, who - I am convinced - it will be a sure inspiration for the work that will follow.

Today, unfortunately, we see that increasingly pressing and complex challenges characterize the migration phenomenon, while many of the problems that we are discussing in our time still remain without an adequate response. To these challenges [as we have heard] as response was sought, in 2016, by the member states of the United Nations with the New York Declaration, undertaking paths of dialogue, consultation and negotiation, both in the area of responsibility that each one has about the protection of refugees, and in the shared management of the migratory phenomenon in general.

These are ongoing processes that, we hope with Pope Francis, can lead to reverting the logic of the globalization of indifference, replacing it with the globalization of solidarity, which, attentive to the needs and the just expectations of the indigenous peoples, will also be able to help those who, in the human family, find themselves in a state of need and in situations of vulnerability.

While consultations for the adoption by the United Nations of a Global Compact on Refugees are underway in Geneva, this time the focus has been on the parallel negotiation process currently underway in New York for the adoption, under the auspices of the United Nations, of a Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, which involves the Heads of the Permanent Missions of Mexico and Switzerland as co-facilitators.

It is a difficult task, considering that the international climate has objectively changed since 2016, due to the unwillingness of many countries to reconcile the just demands of national sovereignty with the urgent need to respond globally to those who are forced to leave their own country because of wars, violations of human rights, natural disasters or conditions of extreme poverty. 

U.S Secretary John Kerry thinks Pope can intervene in Middle East peace process

2014-01-14



Msgr. Pietro Parolin welcomed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for a very brief meeting at the Vatican.


Now, I'm headed to Kuwait to do a major conference for Syrian refugees.

The short visit underscores the pivotal role Pope Francis has gained in international affairs since taking office.

John Kerry made the pit stop in Rome to discuss the peace process between Israel and Palestine. In the past months, he pushed for negotiations, but with no success so far.

Thank you so much for arranging this, and thank you so much for doing this on short notice.

With Pope Francis visiting the Holy Land in May, the United States sees the Pope as a key ally in pushing both sides to the negotiating table.


The meeting lasted an hour and forty minutes. Both two secretaries also talked about Syria, South Sudan, and the healthcare reform in the U.S., a big sticking point between the government and American bishops.

Before saying goodbye, Kerry introduced some of his staff. His assistant secretary of state had special words for Msgr. Parolin about the Pope.

I would like to say that Pope Francis is exciting for non-Catholics as well.

That is very good news. Thank you.




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US Secretary of State John Kerry Visits Vatican

Photo (Courtesy) http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-visits-papal-diplomat-talk-mideast-peace-153626045--politics.html

Lengthy Meeting With Archbishop Pietro Parolin Focuses on Middle East, US Healthcare Reform


Vatican City, January 14, 2014 (Zenit.org)



Ahead of the upcoming Geneva II Conference, US Secretary of State John Kerry met this morning with his Vatican counterpart, Archbishop Pietro Parolin.


According to Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, the meeting lasted roughly an hour and 40 minutes. Also present at the meeting were Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for Relations with States, and Kenneth Hackett, the US Ambassador to the Holy See.

The main subject for discussion was "naturally the question of the Middle East and in particular, the Syrian situation, as well as the Peace Conference in Geneva which is scheduled for the month of January,” Fr. Lombardi said in a statement.

Archbishop Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, reiterated several concerns expressed by Pope Francis during yesterday’s audience with the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See.

“It is unacceptable that unarmed civilians, especially children, become targets,” the Holy Father said of Syria during his address. “I also encourage all parties to promote and ensure in every way possible the provision of urgently-needed aid to much of the population, without overlooking the praiseworthy effort of those countries – especially Lebanon and Jordan – which have generously welcomed to their territory numerous refugees from Syria.”

The two also discussed the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. The Pope expressed his hope for a lasting solution yesterday and recently announced that he would embark on a “pilgrimage of peace” to the Holy Land in May.

Fr. Lombardi said Archbishop Parolin made known to Mr. Kerry concerns of the Holy See and US Bishops regarding healthcare reform in relation to religious freedom and conscientious objection in the United States. Debate continues to rage in the US over the administration's Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate which requires employers to cover contraception, abortifacients and sterilization in their insurance plans.

Although the Obama administration has made several concessions to religious institutions, employers who are Catholic are still compelled by law to cover contraceptives against their conscience.

Fr. Lombardi noted that the meeting was conducted in a positive and constructive atmosphere. The duration of the meeting, he said, “manifests the significance that it had.” (J.A.E.)
(January 14, 2014) © Innovative Media Inc.


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 Photo (Courtesy) http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-visits-papal-diplomat-talk-mideast-peace-153626045--politics.html


Remarks of US Secretary of State John Kerry on Vatican Meeting

"A very comprehensive, very, very interesting conversation."




Rome, January 14, 2014 (Zenit.org)
Here below are remarks made by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry after meeting Vatican officials today:


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Villa Richardson, Rome, 14 Jan. 2014

"Well, let me just say that it was a privilege for me as the first Catholic Secretary of State in about 32 or 33 years to have the privilege of going to the Vatican today to talk with the new secretary of state there about the broad array of issues that we face together across the world. And on a personal level, it was a thrill for me to be able to do that, as an altar boy, as a young kid, I would never have imagined that I would have been crossing the threshold of the Vatican to meet, as Secretary of State, with the Secretary of State of the Holy See.

And it was a very comprehensive, very, very interesting conversation. We touched on just about every major issue that we are both working on, that are issues of concern to all of us. First of all, we talked at great length about Syria, and I was particularly appreciative for the Archbishop’s raising this issue, and equally grateful for the Holy Father’s comments – the Pope’s comments yesterday regarding his support for the Geneva II process. We welcome that support. It is very important to have broad support, and I know that the Pope is particularly concerned about the massive numbers of displaced human beings and the violence that has taken over 130,000 lives.

In addition, the Secretary – Archbishop Parolin asked me for a solid briefing with respect to the Middle East peace process. Pope Francis will be going to Israel and the Palestinian territories and to Jordan in May, and so we agreed, after I gave a briefing, that we would stay in touch in order to keep him abreast of what we’re doing and then what progress there may be in the peace process. But obviously, there are issues of enormous concern to the Holy See, not just about peace, but also about the freedom of access for religious worship in Jerusalem for all religions and appropriate resolution with respect to Jerusalem that respects that going forward.

We also talked about Africa, the challenge of Sudan, where there are particular interests. There is a large Catholic population in South Sudan. President Kiir, himself, is Catholic, and I think that our efforts over the last days could be augmented by the efforts of the Holy See with respect to trying to end the violence and bring about a peaceful resolution. I think the Secretary of State of the Holy See was very interested in what he and they could do in order to try to assist in that process.

We talked also about Cuba and the need for respect for freedom of religion and freedom of – and respect for human rights. I raised the issue of Alan Gross and his captivity, and we hope very much that there might be able to be assistance with respect to that issue. And similarly, the Holy Father yesterday in his speech raised the responsibility that we all have for the climate, for responsibility for planet Earth, which is our common home, as he said. And we share the responsibilities with respect to that.

We talked about the common interest of Pope Francis and President Obama in addressing poverty and extreme poverty on a global basis. The United States of America is deeply involved in efforts in Africa and in other parts of the world – in Asia, South Central Asia – to address this poverty, as is the Catholic Church. And so we have a huge common interest in dealing with this issue of poverty, which in many cases is the root cause of terrorism or even the root cause of the disenfranchisement of millions of people on this planet.

So this was as comprehensive a conversation as I’ve had with any secretary of state or foreign minister in the course of my tenure, and I think, happily, we agreed on an enormous amount of things that we can cooperate on. That’s what’s important. We need to find all of the voices that are prepared to fight for anti-poverty or peace or for reconciliation among peoples, to bring religions together, to bring people together, and to make peace. I am very mindful of the fact that in his first Urbi et Orbi speech or address, the Holy Father did speak about the importance of peace and the importance of all people on Earth being peacemakers.
So I’m grateful for the conversation we had today. I know that the Holy Father is anticipating the visit of President Obama here, and the President is looking forward to coming here to meet with him. So much was agreed on as a mutual agenda this morning, and I’m particularly pleased to know that the Holy Father and the Secretary of State in the Holy See will continue to speak out about peace in the Middle East, continue to try to bring the parties together, continue to help address some of the most pressing concerns that are challenging failed states and failing states in too many parts of the world.

It is good to know that we will have this common enterprise together, and I was very grateful to the archbishop who I had the pleasure of congratulating on his elevation to cardinal, which will take place in February. So it was an all-in-all very helpful meeting, and I’m confident that the groundwork and agreement that we reached with respect to the peace process, as well as a number of other urgent priorities, will help us as we go forward in the next days and months."

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On ZENIT's webpage:

US Secretary of State John Kerry Visits Vatican
(January 14, 2014) © Innovative Media Inc.


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