VATICAN CITY (RNS) — The No. 2 officer at the Vatican said that the Holy See is hopeful about working with President-elect Donald Trump’s administration to address peacekeeping options as wars escalate in Europe and beyond.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s comments were made on Friday (Nov. 15) at a conference on Catholicism and China at the Pontifical Gregorian University, where he presented an optimistic outlook about the Vatican’s relationships with Beijing.
The Vatican hopes there will be “synergy” with the incoming president “because we believe that all problems today are global problems requiring global solutions,” Parolin said, “and those solutions can only happen if we put all of our resources together.”
As the Vatican’s secretary of state, Parolin has been directly involved in mediating the Holy See’s relations with Russia, China and the United States in a global context characterized by growing tensions and wars. While he voiced optimism about working with the Trump administration to build peace, he also underlined “the need to be very humble and patient.”
At an event organized by the America First Policy Institute at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday, Trump repeated his vow, made throughout the presidential campaign, to end all wars. Taking a perhaps more pragmatic approach, Parolin stressed that “there aren’t any magi …