It was all smiles, in public at least, when Trump met Pope Francis at the Vatican
The meeting could provide powerful imagery to Catholic voters back in the United States as well as the possibility for conflict between a president and a pope who have not often seen eye-to-eye
US President Donald Trump met Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday in a keenly-anticipated face-to-face encounter between two world leaders who have clashed repeatedly.
The private audience with the pontiff, which lasted just under half an hour, was preceded by a handshake for the cameras. Smiling broadly, Trump was heard to say “thank you so much,” before commenting, “it is such an honour to be here.”
Francis appeared more serious at the outset but also appeared to be in jovial spirits when the two men emerged after their slightly longer than scheduled chat.
The meeting, arranged at the last minute and squeezed into the 80-year-old pontiff’s diary, came on the third leg of Trump’s first overseas trip as president, which has already taken him to Saudi Arabia and to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Watch: Trump meets Pope Francis
The two men’s often opposite worldviews collided head-on early last year, when Francis was sharply critical of Trump’s campaign pledge to build an impenetrable wall on the Mexican border and his declaration that the United States should turn away Muslim immigrants and refugees.