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    Ukrainian Peace Plan Hints at Concessions, but Major Obstacles Remain

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    Officials in Kyiv plan to deliver their proposal to President Trump’s team, after rejecting a White House plan that would have given the Kremlin much of what it wants.Ukraine’s leadership has drafted a counterproposal to a Trump administration plan that has drawn criticism for conceding too much to Russia. While the counteroffer digs in on some of Kyiv’s earlier demands, it hints at possible concessions on issues that have long been seen as intractable.Under the plan, which was obtained by The New York Times, there would be no restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian military, “a European security contingent” backed by the United States would be deployed on Ukrainian territory to guarantee security, and frozen Russian assets would be used to repair damage in Ukraine caused during the war.Those three provisions could be nonstarters for the Kremlin, but parts of the Ukrainian plan suggest a search for common ground. There is no mention, for instance, of Ukraine fully regaining all the territory seized by Russia or an insistence on Ukraine joining NATO, two issues that President Volodymyr Zelensky has long said were not up for negotiations.Mr. Trump flew to Rome on Friday to attend the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday; Mr. Zelensky had planned to as well, but his spokesman said on Friday that this would depend on the situation in Ukraine, where Russian attacks this week on the capital, Kyiv, and elsewhere have left dozens dead and wounded.In a social media post after landing in Rome, Mr. Trump said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” and urged the two sides to meet directly to “finish it off.” Earlier in the day, he said it was possible he and Mr. Zelensky could meet on the sidelines of the funeral. A senior Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if Mr. Zelensky goes to Rome, he might try to present Mr. Trump with Ukraine’s counterproposal personally.“In the coming days, very significant meetings may take place — meetings that should bring us closer to silence for Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said on Friday in remarks that were uncharacteristically optimistic when compared with the tone of previous statements this week.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Standing With History to Say Goodbye

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      As a reporter, I often observe from a press box or the sidelines. This time, I decided to join the masses.I never had the chance to say hello. But I stood in line to say goodbye.After Pope Francis died, my editors asked me to fly to Italy in advance of a move next month to take up the post of Rome bureau chief. I recently finished an eight-year tour in Tokyo and had thought I would cover the twilight of Francis’s term.Instead, after arriving Thursday night to help report on the funeral and upcoming Conclave to elect Francis’ successor, I wandered over to St. Peter’s Square on Friday morning. I wasn’t planning to linger. I hadn’t picked up my press badge yet, and had read my colleagues’ stories about people waiting for hours to pass before Pope Francis’ coffin.Once I joined the flow of the faithful, I didn’t want to leave the line. I felt an undeniable pull to stay. It was a holiday in Italy and many locals stood to wait along with thousands of tourists and pilgrims. I heard Italian, Spanish, English and many other languages. There were nuns in their habits, older people in wheelchairs, youth groups dressed in identical T-shirts and carrying matching drawstring backpacks.Despite the heavy police presence, the order was loose, with some people weaving in and out and passing ahead, as if on a congested freeway on a weekend. There was not much grumbling, perhaps in deference to the solemn reason we were there.Mourners standing in wait along with thousands of tourists and pilgrims. James Hill for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Francis Wanted a Church of the Poor and Put It Into Practice

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      Around St. Peter’s Square, the pope offered services to the homeless and migrants, in ways that often did not go down well with his fellow clerics.Throughout his papacy, Francis was an outspoken advocate for the downtrodden. Shortly after he was elected in 2013 he said, “How I would like a church that is poor and for the poor.”But Francis, who died on Monday at 88, didn’t just pay lip service.When the vehicle carrying his coffin pulls up at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he will be buried on Saturday, a group of “poor and needy” people will be waiting on the steps, the Vatican said this week. After all, the statement added, the pope “had chosen the name Francis to never forget them.” St. Francis of Assisi renounced his wealth to live in poverty.Marginalized groups will be present at the funeral, the Vatican said Friday.One of the first people to pay their respects when Francis was brought to St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday was Sister Geneviève Jeanningros, who until last year lived in a camper in a fairground outside Rome, serving those in need. She was in regular contact with Francis, who visited the fairground, and images of her weeping in front of his coffin moved many.Sister Geneviève Jeanningros, center in blue, was one of the first people to pay their respects to Francis.Pool photo by Alessandro Di MeoCloser to his own home, Francis “strongly supported” transforming the Vatican post office located on the right side of the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square into a free medical clinic for the homeless and for undocumented migrants. The clinic opened in 2018 and averages 100 visits a day, said its director, Dr. Massimo Ralli.“It’s putting the Gospel into practice because caring for people is one of the aspects of charity,” said Dr. Ralli. “So it absolutely mirrors the message of the Holy Father toward the least.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Cardinals Must Now Decide on Francis’ Legacy

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      Pope Francis’ death on Monday introduces the Catholic Church to an uncertain era for which he tried to prepare it. The cardinals will soon be summoned to Rome for the conclave to elect his successor and must now consider if Francis’ vision — a merciful church in which all are welcome — remains the right one or whether an altogether different approach, perhaps one more focused on the demands of the Christian faith, is needed.Before the conclave starts, the cardinals will spend up to two weeks in Rome meeting to consider what kind of pope is needed, both for the church and for the world. As the discussions go on, they will ask, “Who among us?” Only then do the 135 cardinals eligible to vote — those under 80 years old — go into lockdown in the Sistine Chapel and decide on their choice.The cardinals will be aware of the moment. In the final months of Francis’ papacy, the West appeared to be fracturing, along with the post-World War II rules-based order. The world now seems a jungle in which might is right, in which imperial centers — America, China, Russia — compete ever more fiercely to assert their sovereignty while trampling on that of smaller nations. The cardinals will take note, too, of a social breakdown within many countries: the increasing collapse of civility and the angry resentment that lie behind the rise of nationalist populism. They will see growing violence and the prospect of more war.They will wonder what all this now asks of the church as a whole and of the papacy in particular.While worrying about the threat to democracy and law, most of the cardinals are not likely to mourn the imminent passing of the liberal order, which many may see as the consequence of individualism and market idolatry. They instead may blame Western liberalism for what they consider gross social inequalities, the privatization of morality, the erosion of institutions and the neglect of the common good.Many churchmen are traditionally sympathetic to workers; they share the indignation of ordinary people at the way the deck has been stacked in favor of the educated and wealthy and against the working poor. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, from which nearly half of the electors hail, many cardinals are also angry about market-driven globalization. They believe liberal Western values have been imposed on the world, dissolving bonds of trust, tradition, community and family.At the same time, probably few will be impressed by the rise of strongmen dressed in the flag of nation and faith. Many may regard Donald Trump, Elon Musk and his ilk as nihilists who know how to destroy but not to build and be aghast at the hounding of migrants and the reckless rejection of environmental concern, both of which were core to Catholic social teaching under Francis, who appointed four-fifths of the electors. They will probably see in the new authoritarianism a sign that the state is no longer acting as a brake on what St. Augustine called the “libido dominandi” — the desire to dominate — but now exalts it in the person of an autocrat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pope Francis Blesses Faithful at Easter Mass

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      The pontiff, appearing frail from a balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica, blessed a crowd gathered on the square outside. But a Vatican aide delivered a papal address that focused on global conflicts.Pope Francis on Sunday blessed tens of thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for Easter Mass, his weak, raspy voice a reminder of his frailty less than a month after being discharged from a lengthy hospital stay for life-threatening pneumonia.A roar erupted from the crowd in the square when the pope appeared in a wheelchair on a balcony at Saint Peter’s Basilica and raised a hand in greeting.“Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter,” the pope said. Then he waited as Archbishop Diego Ravelli, a Vatican aide delivered the “Urbi et Orbi,” a papal address delivered at Easter and Christmas.After the address, Francis blessed those present, then waved. The crowds gathered in the square cheered, and called out “Viva il Papa,” or “Long Live the Pope.”Before his appearance, the pope met “for a few minutes” with Vice President JD Vance, who was spending the Easter weekend in Rome, according to the Vatican.When Francis was discharged from the hospital on March 23, his doctors advised him to take it easy for at least two months as he convalesced — and to steer clear of crowds and situations where he could be exposed to germs. His doctor said Francis had almost died in the hospital, where he spent five weeks being treated for pneumonia and other complications.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pope Francis Makes Public Appearance in Rome

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      From a balcony, Francis greeted hundreds of people waiting outside the hospital where he had been treated for respiratory problems.Pope Francis, looking frail and with belabored breathing that made it difficult for him to speak, made his first appearance in more than six weeks Sunday, appearing briefly on the balcony of a Rome hospital to greet hundreds of people gathered in the square in front.“Thank you everyone,” he said in a wisp of a voice. The pope later left the hospital to briefly stop at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, which has an icon of the Virgin Mary he is devoted to, before heading to the Vatican guesthouse where he lives.“I see a woman with yellow flowers,” Francis said during his appearance on the second-floor balcony after he was brought out in a wheelchair. “She’s good,” he said, complimenting her. He then sat and waved with both hands while people cheered and waved flags.But after more than a month out of the public eye, Francis emerged deeply changed and diminished looking, underlining what will be a long recovery and a new phase for him and the church. It became apparent on the balcony that, for now, the Francis of old, who spoke off the cuff and made physical closeness to the faithful a hallmark of his pontificate, was transformed.The pope’s voice was thin and raspy, which was to be expected for a patient who had suffered serious damage to his lungs and respiratory muscles, as his doctors explained at a news conference Saturday.His appearance on Sunday was met with cheers of “Papa Francesco” from the faithful outside the hospital. “Long live the pope,” someone called out.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Archaeologists Unearth Oldest Jewish Ritual Bath Found in Europe

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      Discovered outside Rome, the bath, which is thought to be a mikvah, could be more than 1,600 years old. When Luigi Maria Caliò, a classical archaeology professor, first brought students from the University of Catania to excavate an area of Ostia Antica, the ancient commercial port of call outside Rome, he wasn’t sure what he might find.The dig site had not been explored in modern times, despite its central location next to a square that was once the city’s headquarters for shippers and traders and is today renowned for its mosaics.“We thought we’d find some warehouses or a fluvial port,” he said. Instead, the archaeologists — budding and not — last summer uncovered what may be the oldest existing example in the ancient Roman world of a mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath. They have tentatively dated the structure to the late fourth or early fifth century.“Such an antique mikvah has never been found” outside Israel, “so it’s a very relevant find,” said Riccardo Di Segni, Rome’s chief rabbi. He added that the discovery contributed to further illuminating the rich history of Jews in Rome and Ostia Antica.Jews first came to Rome in the second century B.C., and inhabited the city and its environs, including Ostia, a half-hour train ride outside the capital city.Rome and Ostia to this day are pockmarked with remnants of Jewish heritage: a menorah on the bas-relief of the first-century Arch of Titus; Jewish catacombs; sundry Roman-era inscriptions, and a synagogue at Ostia Antica.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pope Francis Will Remain in Hospital for ‘Complex’ Clinical Issue

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      Pope Francis was admitted on Friday with a respiratory infection. The announcement on Monday did not provide further detail, but raised fresh concerns about the pontiff’s health.Pope Francis will remain in a Rome hospital after being admitted late last week following a series of tests that indicated a “complex clinical picture,” the Vatican said on Monday, raising fresh concerns about the 88-year-old pontiff’s health.Diagnostic tests carried out after Francis was taken to Policlinico A. Gemelli on Friday presented “a polymicrobial respiratory tract infection,” and his doctors had changed treatment accordingly, the Vatican said in a statement.The complex clinical picture “would require an appropriate medical stay,” it said, without elaborating.Francis was hospitalized in 2023 with a respiratory infection, but was able to leave the hospital after three days.Francis has had a busy schedule since New Year’s Eve, when he presided over the opening of the 2025 Jubilee, held every 25 years in the Roman Catholic Church.The Vatican announced in early February that Francis had bronchitis, but he continued his activities, holding smaller audiences at the Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where he lives, but presiding over larger gatherings and Masses with thousands of pilgrims, including an outdoor Mass in St. Peter’s Square earlier this month.The Vatican said that a general audience on Wednesday was canceled.After he entered the hospital, doctors prescribed complete rest. Subsequent medical updates said he was in “stable” condition.The pope, who had part of a lung removed as a young man, has a recent history of medical challenges. He has knee problems and sciatica that have caused a severe limp and, in recent years, often required him to use a wheelchair, walker or cane.In 2021, he had colon surgery. After his bout with bronchitis in 2023, he was hospitalized again a few months later to undergo abdominal surgery for a hernia. Last year, he underwent diagnostic tests at the Gemelli hospital after a slight flu.On Monday morning, Francis ate breakfast and read some newspapers after a restful night, said Matteo Bruni, a Vatican spokesman, adding that the pontiff was “in good spirits.” Mr. Bruni said a medical update would be issued later Monday. More

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      Supreme Court Ruling Means Italy’s ‘Bunga Bunga’ Saga Is Not Over

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      The ruling sets the stage for yet another trial related to the scandal involving Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy who died last year.After 14 years, the 21 women accused of helping to cover up Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s evening bacchanals had hoped that their long legal saga over the so-called “Bunga Bunga” scandal might be over.But Italy’s Supreme Court overturned their acquittals, ruling on Monday that the women could be retried, according to the general prosecutor on the case — a setback for the women and an indication of how large the shadow of Mr. Berlusconi, who died last year, still looms in Italy.The court decision sets the stage for yet another trial related to a scandal that gripped Italy and set off an international tabloid frenzy in 2010, when news emerged about parties Mr. Berlusconi was hosting at his villa near Milan.In the first trial, Mr. Berlusconi was accused of paying for sex with a 17-year-old woman at one of the parties and abusing his office to cover it up. Both the woman and Mr. Berlusconi denied it. Mr. Berlusconi was initially found guilty, but was later acquitted because of a lack of evidence that he was aware at the time that the teen was underage. In the second trial, several of Mr. Berlusconi’s associates were convicted of aiding and abetting prostitution by procuring women for the bacchanals, which became known as the “Bunga Bunga parties.”The third trial involved 21 women accused of accepting hush money to lie and protect Mr. Berlusconi in the earlier court proceedings. A lower court had acquitted them on procedural grounds, but prosecutors in Milan appealed the verdict.The deputy prosecutor general at the Supreme Court, Roberto Aniello, confirmed that Italy’s Supreme Court in Rome had ruled on Monday that the 21 women could be retried. The court has not yet explained its decision; that typically follows in a statement.An appeals court in Milan is set to take up the case, though it was not immediately clear when that would take place.The New York Times reached out to several of the women, who were not immediately available for comment. Some of the 21 have, in the past, admitted to taking money or expensive gifts from Mr. Berlusconi, but said it was not intended to buy their silence. More