In an interview with the Italian quarterly Dialoghi published on April 7, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin delivers a sober assessment of today’s global landscape: Diplomacy is weakening, multilateralism is under pressure, and the logic of force is gaining renewed legitimacy. His central concern is clear. The world is losing both the habit and the will to seek peace through dialogue.
The cardinal does not deny that power has always shaped international relations. What he says troubles him is the growing resignation to it. War, he notes, is increasingly presented as a necessary solution, almost inevitable, while diplomacy appears hesitant and ineffective. At the same time, international law is too often applied selectively, defended in some cases and ignored in others.
This erosion, he argues, lies at the heart of the crisis of multilateralism, the principle of participation by three or more parties. It is not only that institutions have weakened, but that a new kind of multipolar order is emerging — one guided less by cooperation than by competition and dominance. States act to preserve their own advantage, appealing to shared rules only when it suits them. The result is a fragmented world, less capable of responding to common challenges.
On the question of peace, Cardinal Parolin is unequivocal. The belief that weapons can guarantee stability is, in his view, an illusion. He points especially to nuclear arms, insisting that disarmament is both a moral duty and a practical necessity. Echoing Pope Francis, he recalls that even the possession of such weapons has been judged immoral. Rearmament, often presented as realism, risks deepening insecurity rather than resolving it.
Europe, too, stands at a crossroads. The hopes that followed the end of the Cold War — a more unified continent committed to solidarity — have not been fulfilled. Instead, new tensions have emerged, and the war in Ukraine remains a deep wound. Cardinal Parolin stresses the human cost of that conflict and calls for a renewed sense of responsibility. Yet too often, he observes, the response has been limited to further militarization.
Diplomacy, the Vatican official insists, must begin from reality as it is, not as one might wish it to be. It requires both foresight and realism: the ability to consider long-term consequences and the discipline to pursue achievable steps toward peace.
This same realism informs his view of international institutions. Despite its limitations, the United Nations remains, for the Holy See, an essential forum. To abandon it would mean accepting a world governed not by law, but by force.
At the center of Cardinal Parolin’s reflection stands the role of the papacy. The pope, he says, speaks with a prophetic voice rooted in moral clarity and lived realism. The Bishop of Rome, having relinquished temporal power, now exercises a different kind of authority — one that appeals to conscience rather than coercion. Yet this voice, however clear, is not self-executing.
“We cannot hide the sun with a finger,” Cardinal Parolin told Dialoghi. “The voice of the popes is prophetic and marked by the realism I spoke of earlier. The Bishop of Rome is a moral authority whose importance has grown since he lost his temporal power. Yet it is a voice crying in the desert if it is not supported and given concrete help.” History itself offers examples: papal appeals have carried weight when aligned with broader political will, and have been ignored when they challenged prevailing interests.
For Leo's secretary of state, the conclusion is not despair but responsibility. Peace requires more than statements. It demands coherence, courage, and concrete commitment. Above all, it calls for more voices — not only from the Church, but from political leaders and civil society — willing to resist the logic of force and to choose the harder path of dialogue.
