Pontiffs and presidents: White House-Vatican relationship stretches a century, including fighting communism
The Vatican and White House have for decades kept a close relationship, with various popes and presidents meeting in the nation’s capital and in Vatican City across the years.
Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at the age of 88, following years of health issues, including chronic lung disease. Francis was the head of the Roman Catholic Church from 2013 until his death, and had met with three U.S. presidents across his tenure.
Francis’ last high-profile meeting with a U.S. leader was held just hours before his death, when Vice President JD Vance traveled to Italy for the Easter holiday and met with the pope on the most holy day for Christians.
“I know you’ve not been feeling great, but it’s good see you in better health,” Vance told the pontiff Sunday.
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“I pray for you every day,” Vance said. “God bless you.”
Following Francis’ death, Fox News Digital took a look back on high-profile meetings and friendships the Vatican and White House have forged across the years.
Amid the Cold War in 1982 – just years before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 – President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II met at the Vatican.
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The meeting marked the first time a president and pope met alone behind closed doors, a 1982 article detailing the visit reported, and came roughly a year after both had survived assassination attempts just weeks apart in 1981. The meeting marked the beginning of the pair’s close friendship as they worked to defeat the growing threat of communism on the world stage.
Two years later, the pair met again in Fairbanks, Alaska, where they delivered messages of peace in a world on the edge as tensions between the communist Eastern Bloc and the capitalist Western Bloc flared.
“In a violent world, Your Holiness, you have been a minister of peace and love. Your words, your prayers, your example have made you – for those who suffer oppression or the violence of war – a source of solace, inspiration, and hope,” Reagan said. “For this historic ministry the American people are grateful to you, and we wish you every encouragement in your journeys for peace and understanding in the world.”
The two world leaders’ friendship was rooted in their disgust of communism, socialism and atheism that had gripped the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The pope and the Reagan administration worked closely to promote the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, John Paul II’s home country, which encouraged citizens to reject communism in the satellite state of the USSR, the Associated Press previously reported.
The Vatican has denied a formal alliance with the U.S. during the promotion of the Solidarity labor movement, but has said in more recent years that Pope John Paul II and Reagan shared a common goal of fighting totalitarianism, the Associated Press reported in 2004.
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In 1989, Poland became the first country in the Eastern bloc to hold semi-free elections, which resulted in a resounding win for the Solidarity movement and led to the dissolution of the communist government in Poland. The win had a domino effect on other nations as 1989 became known as the year communism fell, including the destruction of the Berlin Wall later that year and the eventual end to the Soviet Union in 1991.
“Pope John Paul II and President Reagan worked together to bring an end to atheistic Soviet communism,” former Republican Gov. Scott Walker wrote in a 2020 Washington Times op-ed of Reagan and Pope John Paul II. “The two had a divine plan to stop the Soviet empire that was engaged in a war on religion and individual liberties. The work of a pope and a president helped bring about the collapse of communism and yielded more freedom and opportunity for people all over the world.”
Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1919 became the first U.S. president to meet with a pontiff, opening the doors to normalizing an open line of communication between Washington and Vatican City.
Wilson was traveling in Europe following the end of World War I and “called upon his Holiness Pope Benedict XV,” according to an article published in America, a Catholic magazine, that year.
VANCE WAS ONE OF POPE FRANCIS’ LAST VISITORS
“The President’s arrival was announced by the Master of the Chamber to the Pope, who awaited Mr. Wilson in the Throne Room,” the magazine reported at the time. “The President was admitted immediately to the presence of the Holy Father, who welcomed him most cordially. They spent about a half hour together. It is not, of course, officially known what were the subjects which they discussed.”
The meeting, which came at a time of ongoing anti-Catholic sentiment stemming from the influx of Catholic immigrants at the turn of the century, set the standard for presidents forging relationships with the Vatican – though such meetings did not become normalized until decades later.
Presidents meeting with the pope did not become common until 1959, when President Dwight Eisenhower visited Pope John XXIII while on a tour of various countries, including Italy, Office of the Historian documents show.
The second meeting between a pope and president set a new tradition.
Every president since Eisenhower has met with the current pope, totaling 32 meetings both in the U.S. and in Vatican City since 1959, Fox Digital found.
It wasn’t until 1979, during President Jimmy Carter’s administration, that the pontiff traveled to Washington and joined the president for a meeting at the White House.
Pope John Paul II was invited to the White House amid his first papal pilgrimage to the United States in 1979, when he was well-received by U.S. Catholics and nicknamed “John Paul, Superstar” by Time magazine due to the lage crowds he drew amid his visits to Boston, New York and Denver.
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“Sharing the belief that respect for human rights and the dignity of the individual must be the cornerstone of the domestic and international policies of nations, the Pope and the President underlined their support for international covenants on human rights and for international organizations and entities which serve the cause of human rights,” the Carter administration said in a statement at the time of the visit. “They agreed that the international community must mobilize its concern and resources to deal with the problems of refugees, to protect human rights, and to prevent hunger and famine.”
A pope visiting the White House has been rarer than a president visiting the Vatican. Pope Benedict visited the White House in 2008 when he celebrated his 81st birthday with President George W. Bush, and Francis traveled to the White House in 2015 and met with President Barack Obama. Other popes have not met a president at the White House.
President Donald Trump, who had clashed with Pope Francis on environmental and political policies, is slated to travel to Vatican City later this week to attend the pope’s funeral Mass.
“Melania and I will be going to the funeral of Pope Francis, in Rome. We look forward to being there!” the president posted Monday to Truth Social.
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