Forget the armoured gas-guzzlers, Pope drives into town in a Fiat 500
FROM the moment the white-robed and smiling Pope Francis landed in Washington DC, doffed his skullcap in the breeze and clambered into his charcoal-gray Fiat 500L, his modesty has endeared him to the notoriously hard to please residents of the city.
The Pope has defined his papacy with an ascetic style, preferring small, economic cars to drive him while overseas, eschewing the larger “Pope mo- biles” of his predecessors. The Pope’s Fiat was at times dwarfed by his vast US security detail which preferred to use customary black, US-built 4x4s.
It was also a marked difference to President Barack Obama’s armoured and customised limousine, known as The Beast.
Washington DC was the first stop on the Pope’s six-day, three-city visit to the United States. He took his time getting to the White House yesterday, stopping to greet schoolchildren who had gathered outside the Vatican’s nun- ciature. The children took selfies with the Pope, hugged him and waved Holy See flags.
Even before he arrived for his first visit to the US, Pope Francis was forced to defend Republican criticism of his economic views.
He told reporters on his flight from Cuba that some people may have an inaccurate impression that he is “a little bit more Left-leaning.” “I am certain that I have never said anything beyond what is in the social doctrine of the church,” he said. In America, the Pope invoked Martin Luther King Jr as he called for global action to combat climate change, saying it was a problem that “can no longer be left to a future generation.”
President Obama hailed the pontiff as a moral force who is “shaking us out of our complacency” with reminders to care for the poor and the planet.
After their opening remarks on the lawn of the White House yesterday, the President and the Pope pulled up two armchairs by the fireplace in the Oval Office for a one-on-one meeting.