Bishop Gudziak: Zelenskyy and Trump’s meeting in Rome is papal blessing

The meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump in Rome during Pope Francis’s funeral was a symbolic gift from the pontiff to the world.

Their conversation, which took place in St. Peter’s Basilica, represented a potential step towards peace, according to Bishop Borys Gudziak, the metropolitan-archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, as reported by OSV News.

“Pope Francis is giving a gift to the world — maybe not the last one, but a gift at the time of farewell to the prospects of peace,” Gudziak said.

A particularly positive outcome, according to the bishop, was the resumption of personal communication between Zelenskyy and Trump.

“I would not venture to predict what the consequences of this conversation may be, but it is clear that President Trump is beginning to understand that Vladimir Putin has no interest in peace. He has not stepped back from his initial and continuously repeated U.S. intentions of obliterating Ukraine,” Bishop Gudziak said.

The circumstances surrounding their meeting should not be underestimated, the bishop said. 

“They were circumstances which inspire. Which point to profound truths about human life and which call to responsibility,” he said.