News World Obama tells Pope Francis he is a 'great admirer'

Obama tells Pope Francis he is a 'great admirer'

Vatican City:  President Barack Obama called himself a 'great admirer' of Pope Francis as he sat down at the Vatican on Thursday with the pontiff he considers a kindred spirit on issues of economic inequality.



To be sure, the relationship between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church is a fraught one.

And Vatican officials say Obama will not leave without having heard Francis' views on Obama's health care law and its mandates for contraception coverage.

But in Francis, the White House sees the popular pope and his emphasis on economic disparity as a form of moral validation of the president's economic agenda.

“Given his great moral authority, when the pope speaks it carries enormous weight,” Obama said in an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera published ahead of his papal visit.

“He can cause people around to the world to stop and perhaps rethink old attitudes and begin treating one another with more decency and compassion.”

Several presidents have found allies if not comfort in the pope.

President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II famously shared an antipathy for the former Soviet Union, Reagan the Cold War warrior and the pope a Polish priest who fought communism in his country and later in Europe.

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