The sidelines discussion between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Saturday at the funeral of Pope Francis reflects the role the late pontiff took in the church and diplomacy, former Ambassador to the Holy See Francis Rooney tells Newsmax.
"The role that Pope Francis undertook to broaden the mission of the church, take the church in a lot of places that it really hadn't been on climate, marginalized people, et cetera, is in contradistinction to a lot of the so-called traditionalists," Rooney, who served as ambassador from 2005-2008 and was appointed by then-President George W. Bush, told Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend."
Trump and Zelenskyy were shown before the funeral, speaking with each other in their first in-person meeting since their angry encounter in February in the Oval Office.
White House communications director Steven Cheung, without detailing their discussion, called their conversation "very productive."
Trump has warned that his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace between Ukraine and Russia if the two sides do not agree on a deal soon.
"This is a yin and yang, if you will, that's been played out ever since 1878," with Pope Pius IX and Pope Leo XII, who succeeded Pius, said Rooney.
Pope Francis, he added, "centralized the operation of the Vatican and changed a lot of the ways that the Vatican has historically operated, and some people in the Curia kind of got depowered, so we'll see how that plays out. So you've got two metaphors playing out now."
Rooney, the author of the book "The Global Vatican," added that if there is "any place for prayer and diplomacy right now, it involves Russia and Ukraine, I think."
"What we've got, we've got a situation where Russia has taken Crimea, and I don't know that anybody in the diplomatic world really believes they're going to leave," he added. "So the question becomes how to find a way for Zelenskyy to win but not get Crimea back."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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