Pope meets with Trump, presses climate views

President Donald Trump and Pope Francis meet for a private audience Wednesday at the Vatican. They met for half an hour. Afterward, Trump described the session as “fantastic.”
President Donald Trump and Pope Francis meet for a private audience Wednesday at the Vatican. They met for half an hour. Afterward, Trump described the session as “fantastic.”

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis put climate change on the agenda Wednesday in a meeting with President Donald Trump that included a private audience and a mutual pledge to work for peace.

In a larger meeting with U.S. and Vatican officials, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, urged Trump not to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord.

The pope, by turns dour and smiling, welcomed a more effusive president to the seat of a Christian denomination that claims more than 70 million followers in the United States. The two stuck mainly to protocol, avoiding a public reprise of the criticism they aimed at each other during Trump's presidential campaign or the pope's thinly veiled critiques of Trump as a symbol of a dangerously reinvigorated nationalism.

But there appeared to be a message in the gifts the pope gave to his guest. They included a copy of his essay on the importance of saving the environment, "Laudato Si," a countering of the type of climate change skepticism espoused by Trump.

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"I'll be reading them," said Trump, who gave the pope a set of books by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., an engraved stone from the King Memorial in Washington and a bronze sculpture of a flowering lotus titled Rising Above.

Francis also presented Trump with a medallion engraved with the image of an olive tree -- "a symbol of peace," he said.

"We can use peace," Trump said.

Francis replied, "It is with all hope that you may become an olive tree to make peace."

As he bade the pope farewell, Trump told him, "I won't forget what you said."

There was a sense at the Vatican that Trump was easier to talk to than his tough language on the campaign trail and sharp words toward Francis had led them to believe. "Trump's bark is worse than his bite," said a senior Vatican official who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the meeting.

For Trump, who arrived after stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel, the visit to the Vatican capped a tour of the ancestral homes of three of the world's great monotheistic religions. For Francis, it was a chance to welcome a second U.S. leader, after President Barack Obama paid his respects in 2014.

Francis and Trump have diametrically opposed views on issues such as immigration, climate change and arms sales. Although both appeared determined not to let politics spoil their encounter, their fraught history and divergent personal styles made for a loaded backdrop.

At the private audience with the pope, Trump posed for a picture -- "protocol," the pope murmured -- and took a seat across a wooden desk from Francis. Vatican officials shooed reporters out of the room and the two men met for half an hour. The pope's session with Obama lasted 50 minutes.

Speaking to reporters later, Trump described the session as "fantastic." Later, on Twitter, he wrote, "I leave the Vatican more determined than ever to pursue PEACE in our world."

The Vatican said in a statement that the two discussed the Middle East and "the protection of Christian communities," as well as "the joint commitment in favor of life, and freedom of worship and conscience," and the Catholic Church's aid work on behalf of migrants.

Immigration has been a fault line between the first South American pope and a president who came to power promising to build a wall to keep Mexican migrants out of the United States. But people close to the pope said in the days leading up to the meeting that he would not reprimand Trump, but instead would seek to impart his values and build a dialogue that could cause a reconsideration of policies by Trump, if not a conversion.

A bell signaling the end of the audience rang at 9 a.m. Vatican time, and Melania Trump joined her husband and the pope. Francis looked graver than the beaming Trump, but he lightened up when he shook Melania Trump's hand, jokingly asking her in Italian, "What do you give him to eat? Potica?" Potica is a Slovenian dessert.

The first lady laughed and said, "Yes."

Trump then introduced his daughter Ivanka, who like Melania Trump wore a black dress and veil; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and other members of the U.S. delegation, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.

Trump, the 13th president to visit the Vatican, also toured the Sistine Chapel.

Later Wednesday, Trump met with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni before traveling to Brussels for a NATO meeting. He'll be back in Italy on Friday for talks with Group of Seven leaders in Taormina, Sicily. The world's biggest developed economies are expecting Trump to say during the summit whether he'll keep the U.S. in the Paris climate accord, German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said Monday.

During the NATO meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron will push Trump on climate change issues as part of a coordinated European effort to sway the president, a French government official said Wednesday morning, adding that he had expected the pope and Gentiloni also to raise the issue. The official said the questions over what the U.S. will decide have led to unprecedented uncertainty over what the G-7 will be able to say in its final communique.

As the richest nation and the second-largest polluter, U.S. efforts are central to keeping climate change from hitting an irreversible tipping point that would unleash catastrophic floods, droughts and storms, according to researchers. The U.S. has pledged to reduce its emissions by at least 26 percent from 2005 levels under the world's broadest-ever environmental agreement.

The president is midway through a grueling nine-day, maiden international journey that has included Middle East stops in the cradles of Islam and Judaism. In Saudi Arabia, he addressed dozens of Arab leaders and urged them to fight extremists at home and to isolate Iran, which he depicted as a menace to the region. In Israel, Trump reaffirmed his commitment to strong ties with the longtime U.S. ally and urged Israelis and the Palestinians to work harder toward peace.

While Trump received warm welcomes in Riyadh and Jerusalem, the reception could grow cooler now that he's reached Europe, the site of widespread protests after his election. Climate change activists projected the words "Planet Earth First" on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Tuesday night, and protests are expected when he attends the NATO meeting in Brussels and the G-7 gathering in Sicily.

Information for this article was contributed by Mark Landler and Jason Horowitz of The New York Times; by Jonathan Lemire, Nicole Winfield and Julie Pace of The Associated Press; and by Margaret Talev, Lorenzo Totaro and staff members of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 05/25/2017

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AP/ALESSANDRA TARANTINO

President Donald Trump poses with Pope Francis and Trump family members Wednesday at the Vatican. At left is Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. His daughter Ivanka and wife Melania Trump stand between them.

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AP/REMO CASILLI

First lady Melania Trump visits with young patients Wednesday at the pediatric hospital Bambin Gesu at the Vatican. She was presented with a sign declaring: “Welcome to Italy.”

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