‘We can use peace’: Trump meets pope
First meeting after clashes over values
VATICAN CITY: President Donald Trump and Pope Francis, two leaders with contrasting styles and differing worldviews, met at the Vatican yesterday, setting aside their previous clashes to broadcast a tone of peace for an audience around the globe.
Mr Trump, midway through a nine-day, maiden international journey, called upon the pontiff in a private, 30-minute meeting laden with religious symbolism and ancient protocol. The president, accompanied by his wife and several aides, arrived at the Vatican just after 8am local time. The president greeted Francis in Sala del Tronetto, the room of the little throne, on the second floor of Apostolic Palace.
Upon completing their meeting, the pope gave the president a medal featuring an olive branch, a symbol of peace, among other gifts.
“We can use peace,” the president responded.
The visit began with a handshake after each man arrived, Mr Trump in a lengthy motorcade, Pope Francis in a Ford Focus. The president could be heard thanking the pope and saying it was “a great honour” to be there. They posed for photographs and then sat down at the papal desk, the pope unsmiling, as their private meeting began.
It ended a half hour later when Pope Francis rang the bell in his private study. The pontiff was then introduced to members of Mr Trump’s delegation, including his wife Melania, his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as aides Hope Hicks and Dan Scavino.
Smiling for the staff, Pope Francis had a light moment with the first lady, asking via translator, “What do you give him to eat, potizza?” referring to a favourite papal dessert from her native Slovenia.
The first lady said “Yes”. She and Ivanka covered their heads in a sign of papal respect, a gesture they did not partake in Saudi Arabia.
As is tradition, the pope and president exchanged gifts. Mr Trump presented the pontiff with a custom-bound, first-edition set of Martin Luther King Jr’s works, an engraved stone from the King memorial in Washington and a bronze sculpture of a flowering lotus titled Rising Above.
“I think you’ll enjoy them. I hope you do,” Mr Trump said.
The pope presented Mr Trump with the medal, a message of peace and three bound papal documents that to some degree define his papacy and priorities, including the family and the environment. The pope told Mr Trump he signed the message “personally for you”. Mr Trump said he would read the books.
When Mr Trump departed, he told the pope: “Thank you, I won’t forget what you said.”
The thousands of pilgrims on hand forced Mr Trump’s motorcade to enter Vatican City from a side entrance rather than the grand entrance through St Peter’s
Square. The meeting, which concluded Mr Trump’s tour of the world’s largest monotheistic religions, comes after the president and pope collided head-on early last year, when Pope Francis was sharply critical of Mr Trump’s campaign pledge to build an impenetrable wall on the Mexican border and his declaration that the US should turn away Muslim immigrants and refugees.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Pope Francis said at the time. The pontiff has been a vocal advocate for aiding refugees, particularly those fleeing the violence in Syria, deeming it both a “moral imperative” and “Christian duty” to help.
Mr Trump then called Pope Francis “disgraceful” for doubting his faith.
Though both Mr Trump and Pope Francis are known for their unpredictability, papal visits with heads of state are carefully arranged bits of political and religious theater that follow a specific programme, with little room for deviation or unwanted surprises. Mr Trump, the 13th president to visit the Vatican, was also given a tour of the Sistine Chapel.
In recent days, Pope Francis and Mr Trump have been in agreement on a need for Muslim leaders to do more against extremists in their own communities. But there are few other areas where their views align.
The president’s prior anti-Muslim rhetoric — including his musing that Islam “hates” the West — is the antithesis of what the pope has been preaching about a need for dialogue with Muslims. Pope Francis also differs sharply with Mr Trump on the need to combat climate change and economic inequality. And he could react to events this week, including the release of Mr Trump’s budget, which would dramatically cut funding to programmes that help the poor, and the president’s agreement to sell military equipment to Saudi Arabia.
Mr Trump’s visit to the Eternal City comes after two stops in the Middle East where he visited the cradles of Islam and Judaism.