At the Vatican meeting, Milley and Pope Francis exchanged gifts. Pope Francis blessed rosaries brought by the general and gave him a sculpture with the phrase, in Italian, “Peace is a fragile flower.”
Milley’s wife of 38 years, Hollyanne Haas, was part of the general’s delegation, as was U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Joe Donnelly.
As the top U.S. general, Milley has commented on the Russia-Ukraine War. According to Reuters, in July he said Ukraine’s counteroffensive was “far from a failure. I think that it’s way too early to make that kind of call.”
Milley told journalists: “I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go and I’ll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long. It’s going be hard. It’s going to be bloody.”
