List of meetings between the pope and the president of the United States

This is the list of meetings between the pope and the president of the United States. The first meeting between a pope and an incumbent U.S. president took place in the aftermath of World War I, January 1919, at the Vatican between Benedict XV and Woodrow Wilson. Altogether, there have been 31 meetings between six popes and 14 U.S. presidents over the past century.

Meetings

No. Date Site City Country President Pope Notes
1 January 4, 1919 Apostolic Palace Rome Italy Woodrow Wilson Benedict XV First meeting between the incumbent president of the United States and the reigning pope. Occurred during President Wilson's participation in the Paris Peace Conference, the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to Europe.
2 December 6, 1959 Vatican City Dwight D. Eisenhower John XXIII
3 July 2, 1963 Vatican City John F. Kennedy Paul VI First meeting between a Roman Catholic U.S. president and the head of the Catholic Church.
4 October 4, 1965 Waldorf Astoria New York New York City United States Lyndon B. Johnson First papal visit to the United States, which also included an address to the United Nations and a visit to the Vatican Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair.
5 December 23, 1967 Vatican City Unannounced stop at the end of the president's visit to Australia and Asia.
6 March 2, 1969 Vatican City Richard Nixon
7 September 29, 1970 Vatican City
8 June 3, 1975 Vatican City Gerald Ford
9 October 6, 1979 White House Washington, D.C. United States Jimmy Carter John Paul II First visit by a pope to the White House.
10 June 21, 1980 Vatican City
11 June 7, 1982 Vatican City Ronald Reagan
12 May 2, 1984 Fairbanks International Airport Fairbanks, Alaska United States President Reagan was returning to the United States from a visit to China while Pope John Paul II was making a stopover on his way to South Korea, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Thailand.
13 June 6, 1987 Vatican City
14 September 10, 1987 Miami International Airport and the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Miami, Florida United States
15 May 27, 1989 Vatican City George H. W. Bush
16 November 8, 1991 Vatican City
17 August 12, 1993 Regis University Denver, Colorado United States Bill Clinton Both leaders addressed thousands of young students at World Youth Day.
18 June 2, 1994 Vatican City
19 October 4, 1995 Newark Liberty International Airport Newark, New Jersey United States
20 January 26, 1999 St. Louis Lambert International Airport St. Louis, Missouri United States
21 July 23, 2001 Palace of Castel Gandolfo Castel Gandolfo Italy George W. Bush
22 May 28, 2002 Vatican City
23 June 4, 2004 Vatican City President Bush presented Pope John Paul II with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
24 June 9, 2007 Vatican City Benedict XVI
25 April 15–16, 2008 White House Washington, D.C. United States
26 June 13, 2008 Vatican City
27 July 10, 2009 Vatican City Barack Obama
28 March 27, 2014 Vatican City Francis
29 September 22–23, 2015 White House Washington, D.C. United States
30 May 24, 2017 Vatican City Donald Trump Occurred during President Trump's visit to Israel, the West Bank, Italy, and Saudi Arabia. The meeting proceeded amicably despite prior public disagreements between the two on environmental policy and Trump's proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall.
31 October 29, 2021 Vatican City Joe Biden Second meeting between a Roman Catholic U.S. president and the head of the Catholic Church. Occurred during President Biden's visit to Italy and the United Kingdom.

Gallery

Other meetings

Future popes meeting the president

Additionally, Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) visited the United States for two weeks in October–November 1936 and met President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Hyde Park, New York on November 5, 1936.

President George W. Bush attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II on April 8, 2005 and briefly met Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, who had celebrated the Requiem Mass. Bush was the first incumbent U.S. president to attend a papal funeral.

Future presidents meeting the pope

According to his sister Corinne, future President Theodore Roosevelt, aged 11, met Pope Pius IX in Rome and kissed his hand when the Roosevelt family was travelling in Europe.

Pope John Paul II with Joe and Jill Biden on April 12, 1980.

While Joe Biden was serving as a U.S. Senator, he met with Pope John Paul II on April 12, 1980 at the Vatican. During Biden's tenure as Vice President of the United States, he met Pope Francis on three occasions. Biden led the U.S. delegation at the papal inauguration of Pope Francis in March 2013; he accompanied the pope during the pontiff's visit to the United States in September 2015; and met him at a Vatican conference on cancer research in April 2016.

Then-Vice President George H. W. Bush met Pope John Paul II on September 19, 1987 in Detroit. The pope was concluding a ten-day visit to the United States.

First ladies meeting the pope

Jacqueline Kennedy was the first First Lady of the United States to meet with a pope independent of her husband, the president. On March 11, 1962, she met with Pope John XXIII at the Vatican while en route to India and Pakistan.

Nancy Reagan met Pope John Paul II at the Vatican on May 4, 1985 while President Ronald Reagan was attending the 11th G7 summit in Bonn, West Germany. Mrs. Reagan met the pontiff again on September 16, 1987 in Los Angeles during his ten-day visit to the United States.

Laura Bush and her daughter Barbara Bush met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on February 9, 2006. The First Lady was en route to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

Former presidents meeting the pope

After leaving office, former Presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore met separately with Pope Pius IX in Rome in 1855. Pius IX also met Franklin Pierce in November 1857. In 1878, Ulysses S. Grant met Pope Leo XIII in the Vatican as part of his post-presidential world tour.

In April 1910, Theodore Roosevelt sought an audience with Pope Pius X. The Pope agreed to see him, provided Roosevelt would not call on some Methodist missionaries in Rome. Roosevelt had no intention of meeting the missionaries, but he declined to submit to Pius X's conditions and the interview did not take place. Theodore Roosevelt called the entire papal episode, "An elegant row."

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Pursuant to the Lateran Treaty of 1929, the Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo is Italian territory, but owned by the Holy See and equipped with extraterritoriality comparable to that of diplomatic missions.

This page was last updated at 2023-11-08 19:34 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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