Pope asks Trump to make peace, gives him environmental letter
VATICAN CITY Pope Francis urged Donald Trump to be a peacemaker at their first meeting on Wednesday after they exchanged sharp words last year, and the US President promised he would not forget the pontiff’s message.
Even when the two were sitting at the pope’s desk in the presence of photographers and reporters, the pope avoided the small talk that usually occurs before the media is ushered out. The two spoke privately for about 30 minutes with translators.
Both men looked far more relaxed at the end of the private meeting, with the pope smiling and joking with Trump and his wife Melania.
Francis’s interpreter could be heard translating a comment by the pope to the First Lady: “What do you give him to eat?”
Francis then gave Trump a small sculptured olive tree and told him through the interpreter that it symbolised peace. “It is my desire that you become an olive tree to construct peace,” the Pope said, speaking in Spanish. Trump responded: “We can use peace.”
Francis also gave Trump a signed copy of his 2017 peace message whose title is “Nonviolence - A Style of Politics for Peace”, and a copy of his 2015 encyclical letter on the need to protect the environment from the effects of climate change. “Well, I’ll be reading them,” Trump said.
He later flew to Brussels where will meet Belgium’s king and prime minister before a day of meetings with European Union and NATO leaders on Thursday.
Trump at first did not plan to stop in Rome during his visit to Europe, which some in the Vatican saw as a snub, but changed his mind later.