When the Archbishop of Bologna, Matteo Zuppi, received the red hat of his cardinal on October 5, 2019, his day ended with a mass celebrated in the square of the Basilica of Santa Maria a Trastevere, a neighborhood of Rome where he found his direction as a teenager and later served as a priest.
“My life, or rather life itself, is always made up of so many pieces that have modeled us and are part of me,” said Cardinal Zuppi, now 69, during his homily that evening. “Today I can see, and I believe that we all see him, the joy of being together like a piece of our common life, exactly the opposite of individualism.”
Many of those gathered to wish him well during that mass knew from his days as a teenage volunteer for the community of Sant'Egidio, a Catholic charity organization known for having worked with the poor, for an interreligious dialogue and for the mediation of international conflicts.
After becoming a priest, he became a vicar to the Basilica and for years he was a spiritual leader of the community of Sant'Egidio, who prays to Santa Maria a Trastevere.
It is now among the cardinals often mentioned by the Vatican observers as a contender as Pope. As a priest and bishop he embraced a pastoral vision of the Ministry similar to that of Francis, and should continue his approach if elected.
For many Romans, Cardinal Zuppi is known as “Don Matteo”, the name of a priest who resolves crime on Italian TV.
When Francis touched him to become a cardinal in 2019, he seemed perfect for a pontiff who was trying to welcome the Catholics of the fold that felt geographically, pastorally and ideologically alienated.
Cardinal Zuppi was welcoming for Roman Catholics LGBTQ and wrote an introduction for the Italian edition of a 2017 book on how to reach gay Catholics from Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and writer.
By sharing Francis' aversion to the traps of his position, Cardinal Zuppi led a bike around Bologna after becoming the archbishop of the Italian city in 2015, just as Francis ridden the public bus while he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires. And as Francis, who chose to live in a modest Vatican pension instead of the apostolic apostolic palace, Cardinal Zuppi moved to a house for retired priests in Bologna.
Cardinal Zuppi also developed an international reputation, entering some of the most bloody conflicts in the world. With Sant'Egidio, he was a leader in interviews that led to the 1992 peace agreement which ended a civil war in Mozambique. He has participated in many other peace talks, not all who produced results.
In 2023, Pope Francis chose Cardinal Zuppi a peace correspondent between Ukraine and Russia. While he was unable to achieve peace, many Ukrainians considered the mission a success. They saw him as “one of the greatest expressions of support for Ukraine by the Holy See,” said Andrii Yurash, Ukrainian ambassador in the Vatican. He encouraged other countries to support dialogue and helped to facilitate the exchange of prisoners and children, said Yurash.
On the day of Francis' funeral, Cardinal Zuppi met the president Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who “expressed our appreciation, our gratitude”, for what the Vatican had done, added Yurash.
But the Association of Cardinal Zuppi with the Community of Sant'Egidio could work against him in the elections for the next Pope, according to Sandro Magister, a Vatican expert. “An increasing number of cardinal voters is wary of a pontificate that would be seriously at risk of being managed by an external oligarchy”, said Magister, referring to the group, calling it a “formidable machine” that under Francis has reached power outside the Vatican.
Other critics stressed that Cardinal Zuppi's connections have contributed to following his initial career: his father worked within the Vatican and, through his mother, Cardinal Zuppi is the grandson of an Italian cardinal a powerful time.
Francis appointed him president of the Conference of Italian Bishops in 2022, choosing him from a group of three candidates voted by the bishops. One of his first acts was to open an investigation into sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy in Italy.
The first report of the investigation was disappointing because it was lacking in scope and independence, said Francesco Zanardi, founder and president of the abuse, a group of rights from the Italian victims. Mr. Zanardi has partially blamed Italian law, which does not require the Church to report crimes of abuse to civil authorities, so Cardinal Zuppi was “following the letter of the law,” he said.
Yet even the Cardinal's critics said that the investigation was more than his predecessors had done in a country where the sexual abuse of the clergy did not have a surrender of public finances. Mr. Zanardi said Cardinal Zuppi had met him numerous times and did not avoid the clash.
This is not surprising the people who know him. Mario Marazziti, of Sant'Egidio, said that over the years Cardinal Zuppi has “developed an experience of dialogue among those who are fighting between opponents worlds” and, with this, a reconciliation capacity.