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The Holy See’s chief diplomat has been in Moscow this week, meeting the Russian foreign minister. Both men offered sober but broadly positive sounding statements following the meeting, as the Vatican continues to push for peace in Eastern Europe.
But even as the Russian minister was praising the Holy See for its diplomatic efforts, government propaganda efforts were pushing out conspiracy theories about Vatican finances, and spinning the Holy See’s peace efforts as a bid to curry Western political influence and funding.
The stark duality of output from the Russian regime would seem to illustrate several things at once – the unreliability of the Russian government as a diplomatic party and the amount of moral credibility the Holy See has staked on trying to engage with it, the most obvious among them.
But, ultimately, the dissemination of anti-Vatican conspiracy theories by Moscow’s proxies could be proof that the Holy See has achieved one of its most obvious but unspoken diplomatic priorities — to be taken seriously.
—
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, head of the Vatican
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