VATICAN CITY: Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi is a discreet 69-year-old diplomat with a progressive stance who was entrusted by Pope Francis to lead sensitive peace missions in Ukraine and Russia.
“Don Matteo“ as he is affectionately called, is regularly mentioned as a successor to Francis.
The Archbishop of Bologna with a ready smile has presided since 2022 over the Italian Bishops' Conference and has the support of a large number of the country's cardinals.
Like the former Argentine pope, Zuppi would vigorously defend the poor and underprivileged, although his words and style are more measured than those of Francis.
“He is a man with a lot of patience, who knows how to listen and who is discreet -- very important characteristics when you want to lead a path of peace,“ said Marco Impagliazzo, president of the Sant’Egidio Catholic community, of which Zuppi is a member.
Nicknamed “the little UN of Trastevere”, the name of the Rome neighbourhood where it is based, the Sant’Egidio lay community acts as an informal diplomatic channel for the Holy See, carrying out peace missions around the world.
But Zuppi's close ties to the organisation could also penalise him at the upcoming conclave to choose the next leader for the Catholic Church, with some more conservative cardinals hesitant to give the political group too much sway.
Made a cardinal by Francis in 2019, Zuppi enjoys great popularity in Italy, where he lives in a retirement home for elderly priests and rides his bicycle through Bologna.
In a May 2023 interview with La Repubblica daily, Zuppi was asked whether he had ever been in love as a youth.
“Of course! But I was even more in love with Jesus. I never had to give up on any girl,“ he replied.
His hours are long, with his working day beginning just before six in the morning and ending “around midnight, sometimes a little later”, he said.
Welcoming
Like Francis, Zuppi champions migrants and welcomes gay Catholics into the Church. But he has been more flexible than the former pontiff on the use of the Latin Mass, a key point of contention for the conservative wing of the Church which calls for its preservation.
Presented by the Italian media as one of the “papabili”, or top contenders to succeed the Argentine Francis, Zuppi is nevertheless competing against several fellow Italians, notably Pietro Parolin and Pierbattista Pizzaballa.
Born in Rome on October 11, 1955, the son of the director of a Catholic newspaper and the fifth of six children, he worked in various churches in the Italian capital before being sent by Francis in 2015 to Bologna.
Building on his various degrees in history, literature and philosophy, Zuppi for more than 30 years has been discreetly leading political mediation missions, including to Cuba, Kosovo, Burundi and Mozambique.
At the head of a mission called for by Francis in 2023, he visited Ukraine and then Russia in a visit to push for the release of Ukrainian children that Kyiv says were forcibly deported to Russia.
Under Nelson Mandela, Zuppi was also involved in the Burundi peace process, and separately with Sant'Egidio founder Andrea Riccardi helped mediate in Mozambique, in a process that led to the signing of a peace agreement in October 1992.
He is also a member of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, responsible for issues concerning migrants and the poor, among others, and a member of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, the body responsible for administering the Holy See's vast property.
Asked by La Repubblica about the various scandals that have rocked the Vatican over the years, the diplomat's answer was direct.
“The Church is not a community of perfect people. It is made up of men, and men are sinners”.
