If Argentina needs divine intervention to resolve its latest debt crisis, economy minister Martin Guzman went to the right man.

Pope Francis took the unusual role of a mediator in debt talks between Guzman and International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva on the sidelines of a Vatican conference last week.

Debt should not be “paid at the price of unbearable sacrifices”, Francis said in a nod to the gruelling negotiations his native Argentina now faces with the IMF and bondholders.

Its creditors will not take such a forgiving stance.

Argentina has thrown down the gauntlet to the IMF and a group of creditors, including GMO and T Rowe Price, by demanding that a debt restructuring is completed by a tough March 31 deadline.

The South American nation is running out of money and is once again threatened by the spectre of default.

“There is a significant probability of a hard default where Argentina will miss payments,” says Carl Ross, a partner and sovereign credit analyst at GMO. “The reason is this timeline is a very aggressive timeline. It is an extremely compressed timeline relative to other debt restructuring in the last 20 years.”

It is the city the Pope hails from that has roiled creditors in recent weeks. The province of Buenos Aires clashed with bondholders over a $250m payment but eventually gave in. Markets saw the lack of help from the government as a hardline stance that could be replicated in upcoming talks over the sovereign debt.