Francis preaches peace to Trump

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis urged US President Donald Trump to be a peacemaker at their first meeting yesterday after they exchanged sharp words last year, and Trump promised he would not forget the pontiff’s message.

Francis smiled faintly as he greeted Trump outside his frugal study and was not as outgoing as he sometimes is with visiting heads of state. Trump, seeming subdued, said, ‘‘It is a great honour.’’

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.

Both men looked far more relaxed at the end of the 30 minute private meeting, with the pope smiling and joking with Trump and his wife Melania. Francis’ 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. Trump responded: ‘‘We can use peace.’’

Francis also gave Trump a copy of his his 2015 encyclical letter on the need to protect the environment from the effects of climate change, which Trump promised to read.

During his election campaign, Trump said scientific findings that human economic activity contributed to global warming were a hoax.

As Trump and the pope said goodbye at the door of the study, Trump told him: ‘‘ Thank you, thank you. I won’t forget what you said.’’ Asked how the meeting with the pope went, Trump said: ‘‘Great. He is something. He is really good. We had a fantastic meeting.’’

The pope said last year a man who thinks about building walls – a reference to Trump’s plan for a wall on the US-Mexican border – and not bridges is ‘‘not Christian’’.

Trump, who was a candidate at the time, responded that it was ‘‘disgraceful’’ of the Argentineborn pope, who represents just over half of the world’s two billion Christians, to question his faith.

Trump later flew to Brussels for meetings with European Union and NATO leaders. — Reuters