Calling himself “a great admirer”, President Barack Obama held nearly an hour of private talks with Pope Francis yesterday and invited the pontiff to visit the White House.
[full]Obama joked with the pope during the parts of their first meeting that were open to reporters, at one stage saying he did not know how his wife and children “put up with me”.
The president and his delegation, including Secretary of State John Kerry, walked past the frescoed halls of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace to the entrance of Francis’s private library.
There were no immediate details of what was discussed, but in the run-up to the meeting, Obama gave an interview to an Italian newspaper praising the pope’s commitment to addressing gaps between rich and poor.
“It is a great honour. I’m a great admirer,” the president said as the pope greeted him and they sat at the pontiff’s desk.
“Thank you so much for receiving me.”
Obama invited the pope to visit the White House as he was giving Francis a symbolic gift of seeds of fruit and vegetables from the garden of the presidential residence.
The White House said further seeds would be donated in the US that would yield several tons of produce to a charity of Pope Francis’s choosing.
“If you have a chance, you can come to the White House and you can see the garden,” Obama said to the pope.
Francis, responding in Spanish, said: “Como no? (For sure!)” He then gave Obama two commemorative medals and a red leather-bound copy of Evangeli Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospels), a document he wrote last year that is seen as the roadmap for his papacy.
“You know, I will probably read this in the Oval Office when I am deeply frustrated and I am sure that it will give me strength and calm me down,” Obama said.
The pope responded in English: “I hope.”
In another moment of levity, Obama told the pope’s translator: “His Holiness is the only person who has to put up with more protocol than me.”
Ahead of the meeting, Obama said Francis’s “great moral authority” had added weight to calls to redress the increasing imbalance of wealth.
“In the US, over the last few decades, we’ve seen a growing gap between the income of those at the very top and the incomes of the typical family,” he said.
“But this isn’t just a problem for the US, it’s a problem for countries around the world.
“And it isn’t just an economic issue, it’s a moral issue.”[/full]
