Pope Francis waves to visitors in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican before his general audience March 13, 2024. (CNS photo/LolaGomez) Ludwig Ring-Eifel (KNA)
From Moscow to NATO headquarters, from Kiev to Washington, political decision-makers have been discussing the Pope’s statements on the subject of negotiated peace in the Ukraine war over the past few days. On Saturday, excerpts from an interview became known in which the Pope spoke of the “courage of the white flag” and suggested that Ukraine put an end to further mass deaths on the battlefields along the front line through negotiations.
The reactions to the 87-year-old pontiff’s words were not long in coming. They were most vehement in Eastern Europe and in Ukraine itself, but even the government in Washington and the NATO Secretary General in Brussels distanced themselves from the statements from Rome. Two points in particular were criticised: One criticism was that Francis had used the image of the white flag and thus recommended that Ukraine capitulate.
The other related to the fact that the Pope said nothing about Russia, but was apparently only concerned about the position of Ukraine, which was under attack and outgunned. Several Vatican officials endeavoured to clear up misunderstandings. Press spokesman Matteo Bruni, the Pope’s ambassador in Kiev and the Cardinal Secretary of State personally recalled that the Pope had not called for Ukraine to capitulate, but for a negotiated peace mediated by international powers.
But even they could not get past the image of the white flag that the Pope had used. The interviewer had put it in the Pope’s mouth, they emphasised. However, this did not explain why the Pope did not simply reject the misleading symbol, which in many contexts means “unconditional surrender” and in others something like “We want to negotiate!”.
Only the context of the question makes it clear why the Pope stuck with the image of the white flag that the interviewer offered him: the entire interview was conducted on 2 February for a cultural programme on Swiss television RSI entitled “Cliche”, which was supposed to be about nothing other than the colour white: The Pope’s white cassock, white wedding dresses as a symbol of innocence, the white in Christian baptism, white doves as a symbol of peace – and also the white flag.
The programme was to be broadcast in Ticino on 20 March and would probably only have had a modest reach. However, the fact that the Pope’s statements on a possible negotiated peace for Ukraine then made it into the international media in advance and were discussed by diplomats, foreign ministers and heads of government worldwide is apparently the result of a sudden inspiration.
When looking through the interview material and the accompanying transcript, someone realised that the Pope’s statements on peace actually had what it takes to attract international attention. Whether it was an employee of the Vatican’s media department or someone from the broadcaster RSI is unclear. The fact is that the text ended up with news agencies such as Reuters and Ansa on Saturday afternoon.
On Saturday evening, the Holy See portal Vatican News reported on the Pope’s words under the headline “The Pope calls for the courage to negotiate in Ukraine”. The first words of categorisation from press spokesman Matteo Bruni, who emphasised that the Pope was not concerned with capitulation, but with negotiations, also came via this channel. The long series of sometimes violent reactions to the Pope’s words on the white flag were no longer able to stop this statement.