Archbishop Gallagher: "It is urgent to revive the "spirit of Helsinki"

ROME-- For the first time since taking up his post as Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher met the foreign media correspondents accredited in Italy at the Rome headquarters of their association on Tuesday. The meeting offered a broad overview of the Holy See's diplomatic priorities: from the health and travels of Pope Leo XIV to the Holy See's efforts to resolve ongoing conflicts, from the situation in the Middle East to relations with China.

  The English prelate answered the journalists' questions, combining cautious assessments of the international situation with indications of the Holy See's diplomatic method. But it was above all a question about the possibility of relaunching the Helsinki Conference that prompted one of the most significant reflections of the meeting.

  Asked whether a new Helsinki Conference, a hope voiced on various occasions by Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV and President Mattarella, is a realistic project or merely a wish, Gallagher acknowledged that "at this moment it will be very difficult." He added, however, that he fully shares that hope, describing the "spirit of Helsinki" as a reference still necessary for Europe and for international relations.

  For the archbishop, the Final Act signed in Helsinki on Aug.1,1975, is the symbol of an era in which deeply divided countries managed to talk to one another and to build an organization capable of promoting peace and economic cooperation on the continent. It is a model, he stressed, that Europe and the world today "desperately need."

  Gallagher recalled that he was struck early in his tenure, when attending his first Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) ministerial meeting, to find that Russia and Ukraine were no longer speaking to each other. For this reason, he added, we must try to rebuild channels of dialogue.

  The Holy See, he assured, is "deeply committed" in this direction. Gallagher evoked the historic role of Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, recalling his constant commitment to the path that led to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and, more broadly, to Vatican diplomacy toward the East: a commitment he said, that Casaroli maintained "from the first day to the last."

  According to the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, relaunching the "spirit of Helsinki" is not merely a symbolic nod to the past. It is, rather, a concrete necessity: without a renewed and functioning multilateral system, small and medium-sized countries risk losing all real influence over the global balance. The world, he warned, would end up dividing into blocs once again, with the risk that these blocs fuel tensions and conflicts in strategic areas.

  Thus, Gallagher concluded that we must work toward that dialogue, he said, and we must persuade others to do so- not so much to formally repeat the 1975 experience as to recover its founding principle: the possibility that even adversaries who are profoundly far apart can sit at the same table, recognize one another and seek common rules for coexistence.

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