VATICAN CITY, Aug. 20 (UPI) — Pope Francis briefly held a poster advocating dialogue on the contested Falkland Islands during a general audience, an action the Vatican downplayed Thursday.
The Pope, who is from Argentina, “did not know and did not realize what was on the sign” when Gustavo Hoyo, leader of a campaign to hold talks on territory claimed by both Argentina and the United Kingdom, handed it to him Wednesday, senior Vatican official Ciro Benedettini said.
Benedettini added, “During the general audience many people hand the Pope different items” and that “there is no endorsement of what was written.”
The small poster read, in Spanish, “It’s time for dialogue between Argentina and the united kingdom over the Falkland Islands.” It used the term “Malvinas,” the Argentinian name for the island chain off the coast of South America and regarded as a British dependency since 1833. An Argentine invasion of the islands was repelled in 1982.
Hoyo, however, told Argentina’s Clarin newspaper that “when he (the Pope) passed by, I explained what this was about and he kindly took the placard and got the picture taken. He could have chosen not to do it, but he did.”
The photo was quickly distributed around the world by social media, notably by Argentine President Christina Fernandez. She asked the Pope, in 2013, to intervene to settle the dispute over the Falkland Islands. He has not, although as archbishop of Buenos Aires, prior to his ascendancy to Pope in 2013, he adopted a pro-Argentine stance on the matter.
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