ROME — For the first time during his administration, President Biden is meeting with Pope Francis on Friday, bringing together the world’s two most powerful Catholics, who share plenty of common ground and are contending with similar adversaries and polarization within the church.
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Here’s what to know:
● Officially, Biden and the pope are planning to discuss migration, climate change, caring for poor — all issues on which they are largely aligned.
● Later Friday, Biden is scheduled to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron, their first in-person encounter since the U.S. role in a thwarted submarine deal incensed the French government.
● On Saturday, Biden will join leaders of the Group of 20 nations for a summit focused on the coronavirus and climate change.
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● The leaders will then continue on to Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP26 climate conference.
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Biden is expected to arrive at the Vatican shortly before noon for a one-hour, closed-door meeting with the pontiff.
Though they have met three times before — including right after Francis’s inauguration in 2013 — this time both men find themselves in a more turbulent moment. In the United States, the same conservative bishops generally resistant to Francis’s inclusive style have argued that Biden’s support of abortion rights is a Catholic failing. In recent months, they have campaigned to deny Communion to the president and other politicians with similar views — a debate that will come to a head in two weeks, when U.S. bishops meet in Baltimore.
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The topic of Communion is not a part of the official agenda for the meeting of the pope and the president. U.S. officials say they will discuss migration, climate and income inequality. On those topics, they are relatively aligned. And although Francis disagrees with Biden on abortion — he calls the practice “murder” — the pope has been more conciliatory toward him than many American bishops have, something Friday’s meeting could demonstrate once more.
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The window into the meeting will be limited, as the Vatican on Thursday unexpectedly curtailed its planned live feed, which will include Biden’s motorcade arrival, but not the initial pleasantries. All along, there had been no plans for media access during the heart of the meeting. A Vatican spokesperson attributed the decision to covid protocols.
This is Biden’s second international trip as president. Later Friday, he will meet with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and then with French President Emmanuel Macron.
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The Macron meeting will be closely watched for indications of the state of the relationship between the United States and France.
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Macron last month complained that his country felt betrayed by its ally, when the Biden administration offered to share sensitive nuclear-powered submarine technology with Australia, effectively canceling an earlier diesel-powered submarine deal between Australia and France. To underscore his anger, Macron briefly recalled the French ambassador back from Washington.
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Biden and Macron have since spoken by phone, but they have billed this face-to-face encounter as part of a continuing effort to rebuild trust.
For Biden’s meeting with the pope, much of the tension stems from a debate roiling his church back home. The U.S. bishops next month are scheduled to vote on a proposed document about the meaning of the Eucharist, and though its authors say the draft won’t mention Biden or abortion, or single out who doesn’t qualify, those topics are expected to come up during discussion.
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Francis has not taken an overt stance on the American debate, but he has advised that bishops should be “pastors, and not go condemning.” The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest who is a close ally of Francis, said the pope “doesn’t want to consider the Eucharist as a political weapon,” either in the United States or other countries that might decide to follow suit.
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“That is the major risk we see from that discussion,” Spadaro said.
Photos of presidents and pontiffs going back to Woodrow Wilson
Biden is just the second Catholic president in American history and also one of the most religiously observant. He attends Mass most Sundays and keeps a photo of Pope Francis in the Oval Office. For all the debate his presidency has triggered within U.S. Catholicism, he has been a calming diplomatic force for relations with the Vatican.
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During the tenure of President Donald Trump, Francis acted as something of a moral counterpoint, regularly condemning the idea of building walls and arguing about the importance of protecting migrants. When Trump visited the Vatican in 2017, one of the gifts Francis presented was his encyclical on the environment — a pointed message to a leader who decided to pull the United States from the Paris climate agreement.
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But with Biden, there appears to be personal warmth. Francis helped comfort the family in 2015, after Biden’s son Beau died. During Francis’s trip to the United States that year, Biden and his wife accompanied the pope on much of his nearly week-long journey, even bidding him farewell at the airport in Philadelphia.
For years, Francis has seen the United States as a centerpiece of the resistance to his own pontificate, even going so far as to call it an “honor” when Americans attack him. But the points of tension have grown, and when Francis cracked down in July on the celebration of the old Latin Mass, the most vocal criticism came from United States, where the rite is most widely used. More recently, in speaking to Jesuits during a trip to Slovakia, Francis took aim at a “large Catholic television channel” that he said was continually speaking ill of him and doing the “work of the devil.”
These Americans are devoted to the old Latin Mass. They are also at odds with Pope Francis.
Though he didn’t name the channel, many interpreted the comment as a reference to EWTN, an American Catholic television network that amplifies oppositional voices, including Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who once called on Francis to resign.
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Even just before Biden’s departure for Europe, his press secretary, Jen Psaki, got into a testy exchange with the EWTN White House correspondent, who asked a question about whether Biden’s meeting with the pontiff would include the topic of the “human dignity of the unborn.”
“You ask me most often, if not every time, about abortion,” Psaki said.
“Is there a problem with this?” the EWTN correspondent, Owen Jensen, asked.
“There is not,” said Psaki, who eventually noted that Biden and Francis agree on many issues, but abortion is not one of them.
“This will be their fourth meeting,” Psaki said. “We expect a warm and constructive dialogue. You are familiar with where the president stands. He’s somebody who stands up for and believes that a woman’s right to choose is important.”
Michelle Boorstein in Washington contributed to this report.