Pope Francis has reiterated in a new interview that Ukraine must negotiate to end its war with Russia, but this time he used language — borrowing his interviewer’s phrase “white flag” — that drew attention and raised questions about the question whether the Pope suggested that Ukraine surrenders.

On Saturday night, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni immediately clarified that the pope meant “ceasefire and negotiation,” not “surrender,” when he mentioned the white flag, a universal symbol of giving up.

But the pope’s words and others used during the interview have underscored how the Vatican has often baffled Ukrainian officials and supporters as they struggled to understand their position.

Early in the war, many Ukrainians expressed frustration with Francis over his refusal to specifically label Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, as the aggressor in the conflict.

Francis eventually became more vocal in expressing his support for what he came to call a “tortured Ukraine,” citing Russian aggression and praying for Ukraine’s innocent victims. But the Vatican had also tried not to take sides in the war, partly to preserve the possibility that it could be called upon to negotiate a peace deal, a hope that many geopolitical analysts see as illusory.

Francis used the term white flag in a television interview recorded in February with the Swiss television channel RSI. The topic of the interview was the color white. An interviewer asked Francis whether he believed there was a need in Ukraine to “surrender, the white flag in this case,” or whether such a capitulation would only legitimize the actions of strong men.

According to images of the public broadcaster’s interview, which will be broadcast later this month, Francis responded by saying that the fear of encouraging the aggressor was “one interpretation, it is true. But I believe that the strongest is the one who sees the situation, thinks about the people, has the courage to fly the white flag and negotiate.”

Mr. Bruni said the pope used the image suggested by the interviewer to signify “the cessation of hostilities, the peace achieved with the courage of negotiation.” He pointed out that Francis said later in the interview: “Negotiation is never a surrender.”

But in the same sentence, Francis calls negotiation “the courage not to drive a country to suicide.”

The pope has made other statements that have made Ukrainian officials and supporters uneasy. He once said there was a secret Vatican “mission” to bring peace to the conflict. His habit of granting audiences to allies and officials of Putin’s government and his general condemnation of the arms trade — while Kiev needs weapons to defend itself — have also undermined some Ukrainians’ confidence in the pope’s support for their cause .

In the interview with RSI, Francis said that today “one can negotiate with the help of international powers, they are there, aren’t they? That word negotiation, it is a courageous word.”

He added: “When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you must have the courage to negotiate.”

“And are you ashamed of yourself?” for negotiation, he continued, adding that if one instead continued along the same path, “how many deaths, and then? Ultimately it will get worse.”

He added that it was crucial “to negotiate in time and find a country that can act as a mediator.”

“Today,” he continued, “for example, in the war in Ukraine, there are many who want to be mediators, right? Turkey for example. Don’t be ashamed to negotiate before things get worse.”

Francis himself has repeatedly tried to position the Vatican as such a mediator. When asked in the interview whether he would be willing to play such a role, he replied: “I’m here, period. I said this.”

Mr Bruni, the Vatican spokesman, added on Saturday that the pope remains hopeful that a diplomatic solution can be reached for a “just and lasting peace.”

Pope Francis, who has had mild flu in recent days, was taken to a hospital in central Rome on Wednesday, rekindling concerns about the 87-year-old pontiff’s health. The Vatican said in a statement that he had undergone “some diagnostic tests” but gave no details about a visit that lasted less than an hour.

During his weekly audience earlier in the day, Francis had apologized to those present and said an aide would read his speech because he still had “a mild cold.” After the audience ended, the pope greeted the faithful for about an hour while sitting in a wheelchair he has increasingly used in recent years.

Traffic police officers from Gemelli Hospital on Tiber Island said Francis arrived around 11:20 a.m. on Wednesday and left about 40 minutes later.

The Pope has been confused for several days. On Saturday, Francis’ public audiences were canceled “due to a mild case of flu,” the Vatican said. The next day he recited the Angelus prayer and blessing from his apartment overlooking St. Peter’s Square, but his audiences were canceled again on Monday because his “flu symptoms persisted, without fever,” the Vatican said at the time.

Francis also did not participate in the traditional procession at the start of Lent two weeks ago.

Francis’ health is a source of concern. The Pope has been hospitalized three times in two years. most recently in June, when surgeons operated on an incisional hernia, usually a result of previous operations, that caused painful intestinal blockages. He also underwent intestinal surgery in 2021 and in March last year he was hospitalized due to a respiratory infection.

In November, Francis was unable to attend the United Nations climate summit in Dubai due to doctor’s orders after a bout of flu and pneumonia. As a teenager, he lost part of a lung due to an infection.

Jason Horowitz reporting contributed.

President Javier Milei of Argentina, before taking office Pope Francis ridiculed as an “imbecile” and accusing him of breaking the Ten Commandments, he met with the Pope on Monday for an hour-long conversation that the Vatican described as “cordial.”

The Vatican said in a statement that the two leaders had spoken in a closed meeting about their shared will to further strengthen relations and discussed the Milei government's program to tackle the economic crisis in Argentina, where the annual inflation rate is 211 percent.

On social media, Mr. Milei's office posted a photo of the Pope with the President and the President's sister, Karina Milei, one of his closest advisers.

The discussions, which took place a day after Mr. Milei attended a Mass for the canonization of Argentina's first female saint, also touched on international issues, “especially ongoing conflicts and the commitment to peace among nations,” the Vatican said.

Goodwill was not self-evident. Both men were born in Buenos Aires, and although the Pope is a national hero to many in Argentina a majority of people identify as Roman CatholicMr. Milei, who says he is an “anarcho-capitalist” and who ran under the banner of a far-right libertarian party, has repeatedly denigrated Francis.

In the years leading up to his election in November, Mr. Milei often attacked the pope, who has repeatedly spoken out in his writings and speeches against free-market economies because they generate income inequality that affects the most vulnerable.

In 2020, Mr. Milei called Francis “the representative of the Evil One on earth” for the Pope's defense of “social justice.” Two years later, Mr. Milei said that Francis “is always on the side of evil” because the Pope supported taxes.

Francis appeared unperturbed and brushed off the criticism as electoral exaggeration. Mr. Milei's comments were made “in jest,” the pope said an interview in December at a Mexican broadcaster.

“You have to make a lot of distinction between what a politician says during the election campaign and what he actually does afterwards,” Francis added, “because then comes the moment of concreteness, of decisions.”

Francis has often downplayed criticism, even the most vitriolic — part of a strategy to keep political doors open even to leaders who hold views he rejects.

It hasn't always worked in his favor. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Pope was initially criticized for his position on Moscow; he finally called out the aggressor only after months had passed.

Mr. Milei's tone toward the pope softened after he was elected president late last year Francis called him after his victory. Mr. Milei's office said in a statement at the time that the pope had contacted Mr. Milei to “congratulate him and express his wishes for the unity and progress of our country.”

On Sunday, Mr. Milei attended a Mass celebrating the canonization of María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, known as Mama Antula, an 18th-century woman who gave up her wealth to care for the poor. She also kept alive the work of the Jesuits, the order to which Francis belongs, after it was expelled from Argentina.

Francis praised her Sunday as a “model of apostolic enthusiasm and daring for us,” and urged his listeners to overcome prejudice and fear and be close to the poor. “How many suffering men and women do we meet on the doorsteps of our cities,” he said

After the ceremony, Francis was taken in a wheelchair to greet the Argentine president. The two men exchanged a few words before Mr. Milei leaned over and gave Francis a hug.

There was widespread speculation among Vatican experts that the two leaders would discuss a possible papal trip to Argentina during their meeting, but the Vatican did not confirm any discussion on that subject. Francis has made 44 trips outside Italy since becoming pope almost 11 years ago, but has never returned home. In January, Mr. Milei sent a formal invitation.

In an interview on Friday with Vatican Newsan official representative of the Vatican, Archbishop Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva of Buenos Aires said the Argentine people were waiting for Pope Francis “and want to meet their pastor.”

The Archbishop also spoke about the current economic situation in Argentina. In the two months since Mr Milei took office, inflation has soared and the value of the national currency has plummeted, sparking protests and strikes. Despite the economic chaos, Mr. Milei's rating has remained high.

“On the one hand, we cannot remain indifferent, because for us the poverty indexes and the poverty indexes tell us about concrete faces, about concrete brothers and sisters who are very badly off,” the archbishop said.

“They are not numbers but concrete faces, and as I always say, the political, business and religious leaders, we all have a small responsibility to reach this situation,” he added.

Mr Milei arrived in Italy from Israel, where he had promised to move his country's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The decision was praised by the Israeli government and criticized by Hamas, the armed Palestinian group with which Israel is at war in the Gaza Strip.

Mr Milei was due to meet Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Monday afternoon.

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Pope Francis on Friday opted not to read a prepared speech in which he complained of a “touch of bronchitis,” instead delivering his comments in print to a delegation of French religious communications experts gathered in the Vatican, adding a few improvised words.

It is the second time in recent months that Francis, 87, has shown signs of illness during one of his regular audiences. In November, he reported a mild cold and made written – not oral – comments to a delegation of European rabbis.

His health has concerned spectators and the faithful in recent years, as he has been hospitalized in Rome three times, including once for bronchitis last March.

A video released by the Vatican on Friday shows Francis slowly walking into an ornate Vatican room using a cane he often uses and taking a seat.

“I would like to read the whole speech, but I have a problem,” Francis said with a smile, breathing heavily. “I suffer from bronchitis and cannot speak properly.”

As Vatican officials distributed printouts of the pope's speech to participants, he added some short off-the-cuff remarks and led a prayer and blessing.

Before meeting the French delegation on Friday, Francis spoke to a group of young professionals and representatives of a Catholic institution that promotes relations between the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches.

Despite the bronchitis, Francis, who is missing part of one lung and has suffered from knee problems and sciatica in recent years, appeared cheerful on Friday.

Still, his health has become an increasing concern since he underwent major surgery in 2021 to remove about a foot of his colon after inflammation caused a narrowing of his colon. Last March, he spent a few days at the Policlinico A. Gemelli Hospital in Rome to treat bronchitis. A few months later, in June, he underwent another operation to remove intestinal blockages caused by previous surgeries. He spent nine days in the hospital.

“I apologize,” the Pope told French communications experts on Friday. “I will greet you one by one, because I don't need to talk to greet you. I do it from my heart.”

Pope Francis used his New Year’s address to highlight concern over the deteriorating situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua due to the prolonged crackdown by President Daniel Ortega’s government, which has detained clergy, expelled missionaries, closed Catholic radio stations and limited religious celebrations.

In his address to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the traditional New Year’s prayer and the blessing of the Angelus, Francis said he was “following with concern what is happening in Nicaragua, where bishops and priests have been deprived of their freedom.”

He expressed his “closeness in prayer to them, their families and the entire Church in the country,” and called on all Catholics to “pray urgently” to “find a path of dialogue to overcome difficulties.”

“Today let us pray for Nicaragua,” Francis said.

Vatican news reported on Monday that at least fourteen priests, two seminarians and a bishop have been arrested in Nicaragua in recent days, and that the country’s top church leader, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, has expressed his solidarity “with the families and communities who are currently without their priests .”

Since 2018, as Mr Ortega has done more and more political opponents are being sidelined Coming from all walks of life, the country’s Catholic leaders, many imprisoned and civil rights suppressed, were among the country’s only independent voices of dissent.

Gianni La Bella, professor of contemporary history at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, said in a 2022 interview that dozens of different types of attacks on the Church and its institutions have taken place since 2018, a sign that the Ortega government saw the ‘Church as an obstacle’, as the ‘only beacon that can shed light on the circumstances of the people of Nicaragua.’

Church leaders initially tried to mediate between the government and the political opposition, but this failed and the government’s crackdown intensified.

In the long campaign for dismantle the church’s reach Dozens of clergy and missionaries have been arrested or expelled in the country, and Catholic institutions have been closed.

Since 2018, the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has been subject to more than 770 attacks, arrests, expropriations and intimidation, including “obstacles to processions, prayers, masses in cemeteries” and messages of hate, according to Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan lawyer. and author of the study “Nicaragua: a persecuted church?”

In August 2022, Bishop Rolando Álvarez became the highest-ranking pastor in decades to be detained in Latin America for political views.

After his arrest Pope Francis spoke of “his concern and sadness” about the situation in Nicaragua. “I would like to express my conviction and hope that, through an open and sincere dialogue, the basis for a respectful and peaceful coexistence can still be found,” Francis said at the time after the weekly Angelus prayer.

In February, Bishop Álvarez was convicted of treason, stripped of his citizenship and sentenced to 26 years in prison.

After the verdict, Francis again spoke of his concern and sadness over the imprisonment, as well as the fate of clerics deported to the United States.. At the timehe called on the hearts of political leaders to be open “to the sincere search for peace, which arises from truth, justice, freedom and love, and which is achieved through the patient pursuit of dialogue.”

In March, the Vatican closed its embassy in Nicaragua after the Nicaraguan government proposed cutting ties with the Holy See and its representative in Managua, Mgr. Marcel Diouf left the country for Costa Rica, The Associated Press reported. The Vatican ambassador had been forced to leave a year earlier.

Some of the imprisoned clerics have been released, and in October the Vatican announced that 12 priests from Nicaragua, recently released from prison, would be housed in the diocese of Rome.

In 1979, Mr. Ortega led the Sandinista revolution that overthrew the corrupt dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Mr Ortega lost elections in 1990 but regained the presidency in 2007, spending a decade eroding the country’s democracy.

Tens of thousands of people stood up against Mr. Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, accused them in 2018 of being a dictatorial family dynasty. Hundreds of people ended up in prison for opposing the government minimum 300 were shot during protests.

Mr. Ortega started last year seize the properties of political prisoners and dissidents forced into exile, including a prominent Jesuit-run university in Managua, with school buildings and bank accounts seized and the school accused of being a “center of terrorism,” according to Fides, a Catholic news agency.

During the repressive crackdown, the Vatican has chosen to keep the doors of communication with the government open.

On Monday, Francis spoke of finding a “path of dialogue to overcome difficulties,” echoing what Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for relations with states and international organizations, said last September at the opening of the 78th session of the United Nations. New York General Assembly. At the time, Archbishop Gallagher had said the Vatican hoped to “engage in a respectful diplomatic dialogue for the good of the local Church and of the entire population.”

To write in FidesThe journalist Victor Gaetan, author of a book on Vatican diplomacy, wrote that the Vatican’s strategy was to engage in dialogue with the government and that this had prompted the country’s top cleric, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes of Managua encouraged not to antagonize the regime.

“A common Vatican strategy, especially under an autocratic regime, is to remain present and resist engulfment – ​​quietly working to limit the state’s most aggressive tactics while pursuing the preservation of the sacraments and the apostolic succession , wrote Mr Gaetan.

The approach, he said, was described by Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, foreign minister under Pope John Paul II and architect of Vatican diplomacy with communist regimes, as the “martyrdom of patience.”

Mr. Gaetan said Cardinal Brenes has been criticized “for being timid in the face of Ortega’s tightening noose on the Church.” And yet, he wrote, “he stands alone.”

Pope Francis focused his Christmas address on Monday on the violence in Israel and the war in Gaza, which had caused a “terrible” loss of civilian lives and brought “sorrow” to Bethlehem, traditionally seen as the birthplace of Jesus. release of Israeli hostages and an end to devastating military attacks.

Delivering its “Urbi and Orbi” – or “for the city and for the world” – Christmas blessing on the birth of Jesus as a symbol of peace, Francis, who turned 87 last week, spoke from a balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica under gray clouds on an unusually warm day. Rome before a crowd of tens of thousands.

He advocated peace around the world, citing specific conflicts including in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Sudan and Ukraine, but it was the conflict in Gaza that was particularly central to his message.

“The eyes and hearts of Christians all over the world are turning to Bethlehem,” Francis said, drawing attention to “deep shadows covering the land.” He advocated peace “in Israel and Palestine, where war is destroying the lives of these peoples,” and said he “embraced them all, especially the Christian communities of Gaza, the parish of Gaza and the entire Holy Land.”

Francis’ comments amplified his message from the Christmas Eve midnight mass in St. Peter’s Basilica just hours earlier, where he declared that “our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once again rejected by the futile logic of war. ”

Continuing that theme in the Urbi et Orbi speech, he said his “heart grieves for the victims of the horrific attack” on October 7 and reiterated his “urgent call for the liberation of those still held hostage.”

At the same time, he urged Israel to withdraw from its campaign in Gaza, where the Health Ministry says the death toll recently surpassed 20,000, and aid groups say people are starving and being pushed to smaller parts of the enclave.

“I call for an end to military operations with their terrible harvest of innocent civilian victims,” the Pope said, “and call for a solution to the desperate humanitarian situation by opening an opening for the provision of humanitarian aid.”

Francis delivered the blessing amid a burst of activity from the church, including his recent decisions to allow priests to bless same-sex couples and his crackdown on dissenting prelates who have tried to undermine his mission to restore the church more pastoral and less rigid.

But diplomatic efforts in war and peace outside his control have had little success, clearly frustrating a pope who has relentlessly called for peace, especially in the Holy Land.

“May the stirring up of violence and hatred come to an end. And may the Palestinian issue be resolved through a sincere and persistent dialogue between the parties, backed by strong political will and the support of the international community,” Francis said on Monday. He recalled that according to the New Testament, Jesus’ birth “was followed by the slaughter of the innocent.”

“How many innocents are being slaughtered in our world!” Francis asked, expanding the list of victims to include aborted fetuses, immigrants and war children. “In the womb of their mothers, in odysseys undertaken in despair and in search of hope, in the lives of all those little ones whose childhoods were destroyed by war.”

On the arms trade, a frequent target of his criticism, Francis urged the faithful to say no “to the mentality of war” and called it “an aimless journey.”

“If we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them,” he added. “And how can we even talk about peace when the production, sale and trade of weapons increases?”

He lamented that the poor were often left in the dark about the money used to purchase weapons that could be spent on feeding the needy. “They need to know that!” he said.

Francis also prayed for peace in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. He urged the world to commemorate the conflicts in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, Sudan and Cameroon, as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, two countries he visited as a serious, if not successful, peacemaker .

He spoke again about Ukraine, a frequent topic of his prayers, and urged the faithful to “renew our spiritual and human bond with the embattled people.”

He also called for easing tensions and reconciliation between North Korea and South Korea, and discussed the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where he called for the safe and legal return of refugees to their homes, and ensuring respect for religious traditions and places of worship on both sides.

And in America, a part of the world dear to the Argentine Pope, he expressed hope that the Christmas message of peace would inspire politicians “to resolve social and political conflicts, to fight forms of poverty that undermine the dignity of people to tackle inequality and the disturbing phenomenon of migration movements.”

He said it is the responsibility of Christians to be the voice for the voiceless, including those who “risk their lives on grueling journeys and fall prey to unscrupulous traffickers.” Preparing for the Holy Year in 2025, he said, was “an opportunity for the conversion of hearts, for the rejection of war and the embrace of peace.”