Pope Francis and his diplomatic team have Helsinki in mind
ROME — Despite having only a handful of Catholics and the pope not even bothering to name a bishop there since 2019, Finland’s capital Helsinki may currently absorb more of the Vatican’s collective spiritual energy than almost any other city in the world.
It is not for ecclesiastical reasons, but for geopolitical reasons. The “Helsinki Accords” of 1975 were made in Helsinki, which represent the signature moment of Cold War diplomacy, Vatican policy. Ostpolitikand the inspiration for Rome’s current efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
This coming Tuesday, the goal is 21St century version of the Helsinki Agreements is on public display at the conference “Europe and War: From the Spirit of Helsinki to Peace Prospects”, co-sponsored by the Mission of the Holy See of Italy. L’Osservatore RomanoVatican Radio, Vatican News and an Italian magazine Limes.
Included is Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s foreign minister, who last April called for a “new Helsinki conference” as a way to deal with the Ukraine conflict. Other key figures from Pope Francis will also be present, including CEO Andrea Tornielli and Sant’Egidio founder Andrea Riccardi, and the event will be streamed live on the Vatican’s media platform.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella was also due to attend, but it was revealed late on Saturday that he had tested positive for Covid and is likely to have to withdraw from his public appointments this week.
When he was in Kazakhstan in September, Pope Francis particularly appealed to the Helsinki Agreements as inspiration.
“Now is the time to stop intensifying competition and strengthening opposing factions,” he said. “We need leaders who, at the international level, can enable the growth of mutual understanding and dialogue between nations and thus give birth to a new “Spirit of Helsinki”, the determination to strengthen multilateralism, to build a more stable and peaceful world. with an eye on future generations.”
In summary, the Helsinki Agreements were the result of two years of negotiations between all European countries at the time (except Andorra and Albania) and the United States and Canada. The goal was to promote a detente between East and West and reduce the chances of the Cold War escalating.
The agreements established several principles, including the inviolability of national borders, refraining from the use or threat of force, non-interference in internal affairs, and the right to self-determination. It was highly controversial among US Cold War hawks, who thought it signified the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, and Soviet domination of Western Europe more generally. The Wall Street Journal asked then-President Gerald Ford not to attend the treaty signing with the headline “Jerry, Don’t Go!”
In hindsight, however, many historians believe that the Helsinki Agreements prevented the escalation of conflicts between East and West. In the long run, some historians believe that the language of self-determination actually promoted independence movements behind the Iron Curtain.
There are three reasons why the Helsinki agreements loom so large in the Vatican’s diplomatic memory and imagination.
First, they represented a breakthrough for the country’s politics Ostpolitikmeans dialogue with the socialist world, conceived by then-Archbishop Agostino Casaroli, who led the Vatican’s delegation to the negotiations and was credited by several participants with helping the outcome.
Casaroli became a cardinal and secretary of state under St. John Paul II. In a recent interview with a Jesuit-sponsored magazine AmericaPope Francis called Casaroli “the greatest model I have found in the Church today” of dialogue as a diplomatic strategy, and Helsinki is remembered as one of his most brilliant moments.
Second, the Vatican has always considered Italy as its most natural ally on the global stage and as a kind of reinforcement of its diplomatic and humanitarian agenda. The Helsinki Accords are perhaps the best modern example of this idea in practice, as the other main architect of the agreement alongside Casaroli was the then Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, a close personal friend of Saint Pope Paul VI.
Moro was privileged to help broker the agreements because Italy had by far the largest communist party anywhere in the West and it was Moro who had first incorporated socialists directly into the Italian government. As a result, Moro was able to engage the Soviet states in a way that other Western leaders found difficult.
While few in the Vatican today have the same hopes for the country’s current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, they see the 81-year-old Mattarella not only as a gifted statesman but also as an ally who could play an important role behind the country. the role of scenes.
Third, Pope Francis and his team have a soft spot for Helsinki because it seemed like a justification for the same policy of patience and restraint that they have tried to use with Russia almost half a century later.
When it comes to Russia (and China too), Francis is not “tear down this wall!” a kind of pope. (Incidentally, Ronald Reagan cited the Helsinki Accords as part of the reasons he decided to challenge Ford in the 1976 Republican primary.) Diplomatically, Francis is a dove, not a hawk, and Helsinki is perhaps considered the dove’s most significant success. instinct during the cold war.
It remains to be seen whether the Helsinki Accords can actually provide a plan today. Even Tuesday’s press release about the event was cautious: “The many changes that have taken place since then make a similar initiative difficult, but Helsinki is still a point of reference and a value, starting with the spirit that animated the conference, and it is no coincidence that today people who seek peace refer to it.”
In that sense, it is not only the “spirit of Vatican II” that defines Pope Francis. It’s also the “Spirit of Helsinki,” a point that’s sure to be in the air a lot this week.