(ZENIT News / New York, 05.21.2025).- On May 19, the Camino to Peace Foundation recognized decades of diplomatic dedication Cardinal Parolin by bestowing upon him its prestigious annual award—a gesture that, in the Cardinal’s own words, acknowledged not just personal merit but the enduring moral witness of the Holy See.
Founded in 1991 by Archbishop Renato Raffaele Martino during his time as the Vatican’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations, the foundation was conceived as a bridge between faith and international diplomacy. The award ceremony this year, held in New York, was imbued with a sense of continuity: it came at a moment when the role of spiritual voices in global forums seems both more fragile and more necessary than ever.
Cardinal Parolin accepted the honor not as a solitary accolade but as a collective recognition of the work carried out daily by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State—“on behalf of the Roman Pontiff, in service of a more just and reconciled world.” He used the moment not to spotlight himself, but to revisit a prophetic lineage stretching across six decades of papal engagement with the United Nations.
2025 marks a triple milestone: sixty years since Paul VI’s groundbreaking address to the UN General Assembly in 1965, thirty since the second visit of John Paul II, and ten since Pope Francis stood before world leaders to urge an ecological and ethical conversion. Cardinal Parolin’s remarks invited reflection on each of these papal moments—not as isolated speeches, but as a spiritual narrative inscribed into the conscience of global diplomacy.
Paul VI’s plea, “No more war, never again war!”, delivered during the Cold War’s most precarious chapter, was recalled as a cornerstone of moral foreign policy. John Paul II’s poignant reflections, shaped by his personal history of oppression and totalitarianism, were cited as a confrontation with humanity’s darkest capacities. Benedict XVI, the scholar Pope, was remembered for articulating the philosophical underpinnings of universal human rights—truths “not subject to the shifting sands of consensus,” as Parolin recalled. And Francis’ challenge to the “throwaway culture” and his emphasis on environmental justice were underscored as particularly prophetic in today’s climate of ecological crisis and social fragmentation.
The Cardinal’s message, however, looked forward as much as back. With the recent election of Pope Leo XIV—himself an advocate of disarmament and dignity—Parolin highlighted the continuity of the Church’s peace mission. He noted how the new Pope’s call for “an unarmed peace” and his choice of papal name signal a deliberate evocation of the Church’s social doctrine in response to today’s dehumanizing technologies and widening global inequality.
Yet Cardinal Parolin was also candid about the limits of diplomacy. Treaties and resolutions, he said, are only the scaffolding. The real edifice of peace is built “in the hidden transformation of human hearts,” in how nations learn to uphold the dignity of the weakest, to listen more than dictate, to act from moral courage rather than political expediency.
The evening was not merely ceremonial. It was an invitation to remember that the Catholic Church, through its permanent mission to the UN and broader diplomatic efforts, has no army, no economic leverage, but a tradition of moral insistence. And in Parolin, many see not only a skilled statesman, but also a custodian of that tradition—a man who embodies the Vatican’s tireless, often quiet, pursuit of peace rooted in justice.
As he concluded, Cardinal Parolin gently urged the United Nations to continue its own transformation—not just in structure, but in soul. “Renewal,” he said, “must be moral as well as institutional. And the fruits of that renewal will be seen not in press releases, but in lives saved, in dignity restored, in a world less afraid of the word peace.”
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