Pope Francis believes climate change is one of the greatest threats to humanity. Donald Trump thinks it might be a Chinese hoax. Francis wants the world’s doors swung open to refugees. Trump wants fewer of them in America. Income inequality is a serious concern for the pope. The billionaire president would rewrite the U.S. tax code to make the wealthy even richer.
No two world leaders would seem to have less in common. They’ll meet face to face at the Vatican for the first time on Wednesday, at Trump’s request.
For the president, it’s an encounter that may confer some legitimacy as he grapples with a political crisis back home. For Francis, it’s a chance to influence a leader who, for all his stumbles, remains the most powerful person in the world.
“There’s a whole range of issues on which the pope and Trump differ, but the point of their meeting isn’t to forge agreement on them or to change each other’s minds,” papal biographer Austen Ivereigh said in a telephone interview. “The point is to establish a bond of trust, which they can both call on in the future to further their agendas.”
Trump, a Presbyterian, was in no hurry to meet the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, according to a senior Vatican official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. The White House reached out to the Vatican only at the end of April, the official said, noting that leaders usually schedule meetings with the pope two months or more in advance.
The visit is sandwiched between Trump’s spin through Saudi Arabia and Israel and a NATO meeting and the annual Group of Seven summit of leaders of major industrialized democracies later this week.
Francis adopted a wait-and-see attitude on the eve of the encounter. Asked whether he expected Trump to soften his stand on issues such as climate change and migrants when the two meet, Francis told reporters on a flight back from visiting Fatima in Portugal that he was not into “political calculation.”
“We’ll talk, each of us will say what he thinks. Each of us will listen to the other,” Francis said on May 13. “I never make a judgment on a person without first listening to that person. We’ll talk and afterwards I’ll say what I think.”
Different Upbringings
Trump, 70, and Francis, 80, could hardly be more different as people, too. The child of an Italian immigrant to Argentina, Francis has made humility a distinguishing feature of his papacy. He refused to live in the opulent Apostolic Palace, choosing a guest house for Church officials near St. Peter’s Basilica instead; he takes his meals in its canteen.