The history of meetings between U.S. presidents and pontiffs

President Biden met with Pope Francis connected Friday, successful what was a lengthy speech betwixt America’s 2nd Catholic president and the person of the Catholic church. The 2 figures stock a adjacent relationship.

Biden, devout successful his faith, turned to Francis for comfortableness erstwhile his lad Beau died and adjacent has a photograph of the pontiff displayed successful the Oval Office.

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Biden joins a agelong enactment of American presidents who person held summits with popes. Some audiences person been tense, with disagreements connected overseas argumentation and refusals to travel protocol. Other exchanges person been affectionate, adjacent emotional.

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President Woodrow Wilson, a Presbyterian, became the first U.S. president to sojourn the Vatican successful 1919. It was portion of a months-long circuit of Europe promoting his League of Nations successful the aftermath of World War I.

During his gathering with Pope Benedict XV, the 2 discussed the request for bid aft bloodshed but the gathering ended awkwardly: As attendees knelt to beryllium blessed by Benedict, Wilson, who was not a Catholic, remained standing.

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Forty years later, aft the Great Depression and different satellite war, President Dwight D. Eisenhower paid a sojourn to the Vatican to conscionable with Pope John XXIII.

There was beardown anti-Catholic sentiment successful the United States, but the code betwixt the 2 leaders was positive. During the December 1959 meeting, they discussed the value of spreading bid astir the world, particularly amid the instauration of “tremendous weapons of demolition which present exist.”

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Since Eisenhower, each president has met with the pope.

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President John F. Kennedy was the country’s archetypal Catholic president, a information helium downplayed portion campaigning, erstwhile declaring, “I americium not the Catholic campaigner for president. I americium the Democratic Party’s campaigner for president, who happens besides to beryllium a Catholic.”

But his assemblage with Pope Paul VI astatine the Vatican was symbolic each the same.

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The 2 met connected July 2, 1963, conscionable months earlier Kennedy’s assassination. Kennedy was greeted successful Rome by cheering crowds arsenic his motorcade made its mode to Vatican City. There, Paul praised Kennedy’s efforts to extremity radical favoritism successful the United States. They shared a almighty handshake, but Kennedy declined to buss the pope’s ring.

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Later successful his clip arsenic pontiff, Paul became the first pope to sojourn the United States, meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson successful New York connected Oct. 4, 1965.

During their 46-minute-long speech astatine the Waldorf Astoria, they discussed the pillars of Johnson’s “great society” initiatives, including civilian rights, acquisition and poverty.

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They met again 2 years aboriginal erstwhile Johnson surprised Paul astatine the Vatican astir Christmastime and offered him a gift: a bronze bust of the Texan president himself.

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President Richard Nixon traveled to conscionable with Paul successful 1969. His successor, President Gerald Ford, made the travel to the Vatican successful 1975.

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In 1979, Pope John Paul II made past by becoming the archetypal pope to sojourn the White House, wherever helium met with President Jimmy Carter.

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In 1987, President Ronald Reagan and John Paul met astatine the Vatican. It was 1 of respective meetings betwixt the 2 leaders staunchly successful statement astir the evils of Communism and the Soviet Union.

As helium had successful past summits, the pope that June, called for “ending the arms race” betwixt Russia and the United States and “liberating resources” that could beryllium utilized to provender the hungry.

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The gathering took place connected the backdrop of the Iran-contra scandal, which the pope did not straight address. But helium did say, “Whenever motivation and spiritual values are rejected, oregon adjacent fixed specified articulator work and not genuinely integrated into regular life, past we, arsenic individuals oregon groups, arsenic communities oregon nations, autumn abbreviated of what we were intended to beryllium arsenic men and women created successful the representation of God.”

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John Paul’s remarks during the presidency of George H.W. Bush were little abstract. Speaking astatine the opening of Bush’s crushed warfare successful the Persian Gulf, the pontiff called the struggle “the effect of death.” He urged a assemblage of 20,000 radical successful St. Peter’s Square to commune for the warfare to end.

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John Paul had a akin connection for Bush’s son, President George W. Bush. When the 2 met astatine the Vatican successful 2004, astatine the commencement of the Iraq War, the pope urged for “a speedy instrumentality of Iraq’s sovereignty.”

Referencing the caller revelations of U.S. torture of prisoners successful Abu Ghraib, the 84-year-old pontiff noted that “deplorable events person travel to airy which person troubled the civic and spiritual conscience of all.”

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With different presidents and pontiffs determination were disagreements implicit termination rights.

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But possibly the astir tense president-pope narration was that of President Donald Trump and Pope Francis. Even earlier Trump was elected, Francis had immoderate beardown words astir the existent property mogul, saying successful February 2016: “A idiosyncratic who thinks lone astir gathering walls, wherever they whitethorn be, and not gathering bridges, is not Christian.”

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The 2 met successful May 2017 astatine the Vatican against a backdrop of divergent views connected clime alteration and immigration. There, during an overall dour and awkward meeting, Francis presented Trump with a pointed gift: a signed transcript of “Laudato Si” — the pontiff’s 192-page enactment for associated efforts from the technological and spiritual communities to combat clime change.

At the time, Trump was considering pulling the United States retired of the Paris clime agreement.

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Unlike Trump, Biden and Francis look to hold connected the request for clime action. But their gathering came amid challenges for some leaders. Some U.S. Catholic Bishops person said Biden, though a Catholic, should not person Communion due to the fact that of his wide stance connected termination rights. The Vatican has warned the bishops to backmost down, but the contented remains a divisive occupation for the person of the Catholic Church.

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Editing by Reem Akkad. Photo editing by Chloe Coleman. Video editing by Luis Velarde.