The Vatican is involved in a secret peace mission to Ukraine. This was revealed this Sunday by Pope Francis at the press conference on board the plane back from his three-day trip to Hungary, although he did not want to give more details on the matter.

“Now there is a mission going on, but it is not yet public. Let’s see how… When it’s public, I’ll tell it”, he told the journalists who were traveling with him on the papal plane.

Francis discussed the situation in Ukraine with the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, and with Metropolitan Hilarion, the former “Foreign Minister” of the Moscow Patriarchate, who was deposed by Patriarch Cyril for being against the invasion of Ukraine, when they met for twenty minutes behind closed doors in Budapest.

“You imagine that in this meeting we don’t just talk about Little Red Hood, right? We talk about all these things. This has been discussed because we are all interested in the path of peace. I am willing. I am ready to do everything that needs to be done”, the Pontiff indicated, when asked about this meeting. With Orbán he spoke of the possibilities of dialogue to stop the war, because “peace is made by opening channels and never by closing them.”

Regarding his state of health after being hospitalized a few weeks ago for a respiratory infection, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has denied that he had been unconscious, as a close friend explained to an Italian newspaper, but he did say that he suffered “acute pneumonia.” The 86-year-old Argentine pontiff woke up from a nap with a high fever and then, at 3 in the afternoon, the doctor took him to the hospital with this acute pneumonia “and strong in the lower part.” “But the body has reacted well to the treatment,” he added to reporters, after he resumed his normal schedule after three days in hospital. In addition, he has confirmed his intention to travel to Lisbon, in August, for World Youth Day, as well as to Marseille and Mongolia.