Funny memes that flooded the Internet after Donald Trump's awkward meeting with the Pope. Donald Trump met Pope Francis for the first time This is not enough

Pope Francis with Donald Trump during a private audience at the Vatican.
/Reuters

Pope Francis and President Trump have made peace, at least between themselves. This couple had sharp clash of views during the presidential campaign, but for their meeting at the Vatican on May 24, they put aside their differences, exchanged gifts and discussed the need for peace following the overnight terrorist attack in England on May 22.

“Meeting His Holiness Pope Francis is an honor that will last a lifetime. “I return from the Vatican even more determined to pursue a policy of PEACE in our world,” Trump wrote in one tweet during his first trip abroad as president after the first informal one-on-one talks.

At the beginning of the meeting with his interlocutor, Trump was tense. But once the two emerged from their 30-minute discussion, he visibly relaxed and continuously praised the Catholic leader.

“Thank you, thank you... I won’t forget what you said,” Trump told the pope, although it was not immediately clear what he was talking about because journalists were not allowed into the meeting.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said one of the issues they discussed was the global threat of terrorist groups such as ISIS.

They had “quite extensive conversations about the latest terrorist threats, extremism and youth radicalization. This is one of the reasons why the meeting was long. They had a very good conversation about it,” Tillerson said aboard the presidential plane as the president and his entourage headed to Brussels for the next leg of their nine-day trip.

After the meeting, the Pope gave Trump a small olive tree.

“I wish that you become an olive tree in the creation of peace,” Francis, who was born and raised in Argentina, said in Spanish.

Pope Francis with Donald Trump during a private audience at the Vatican. /Reuters

Francis also gave Trump a signed copy of his 2017 message, “Nonviolence, a Style of Politics for Peace,” and a copy of his 2015 encyclical letter on the need to protect the world from the effects of climate change.

In return, Trump presented the Pope with a set of first editions of civil rights leader Martin Luther King and an engraved stone from the King Memorial in Washington.

Tillerson said Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin urged Trump to ensure America continues to support the Paris climate accord, adding that they had a "good exchange."

Tillerson said the president had not yet made a decision on the matter.

Trump and the pope also spoke about immigration, an issue that became a source of tension during the presidential campaign, where the pontiff vehemently opposed the president's promise to build a wall on the Mexican border.

Francis then said Trump should think about building a bridge, not barriers, and called people who thought about walls “not Christians.” Trump called the pope's comments "reprehensible."

The Vatican statement said the May 24 meeting was “cordial” and expressed hope for “serene cooperation” between the church and the U.S. government, including “assistance for immigrants.”

Later, during a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Trump said: "It was a great honor to meet the Pope."

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Donald Trump intends to fight for world peace. He made this statement after a meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican. The face-to-face conversation lasted less than half an hour. However, the Pontiff and the US President managed to discuss many important topics even in such a short time. The head of the White House continues his first foreign tour. Now he and his wife are already in Brussels, where the NATO summit will be held.

Against the backdrop of the more than warm Middle Eastern reception given to Donald Trump in Saudi Arabia and Israel, the European reception seems not just cold, but icy. This is reported by . The American leader is met at the plane by only a few ministers and middle-level Vatican representatives. On the territory of the enclave, where the president goes first, his motorcade passes through the side entrance of Perugino. This is the decision of the pontiff, who considered the visit of the distinguished guest an insufficient reason to disturb the believers in St. Peter's Square. Trump is greeted in the backyard by the Prefect of the Papal Household.

The wife accompanying the president is all in black, with her head covered. This is what the protocol requires. The liberties in the dress code that Melania was forgiven for in Riyadh would clearly not be tolerated here. Pope Francis is already not too happy about the meeting. Judging by his serious, almost gloomy expression on his face during the photo shoot. Trump, on the contrary, puts on a wide smile in front of the cameras.

The conversation in the library of the Apostolic Palace lasts just over 20 minutes. For comparison, Vladimir Putin spoke privately with the Pope for an hour during his last visit to the Vatican. There are few details of Donald Trump's conversation with the pontiff. It is known that Francis called on the US president to take on the role of peacemaker. He didn't mind.

"It has been the honor of a lifetime to meet His Holiness Pope Francis. I am now even more determined to bring peace to our lives," Trump later tweeted.

Initially, there were not many hopes for this meeting. A scenario in which Trump and Pope Francis would be able to find at least some common ground would be considered a great success. Previously, they only exchanged caustic comments. The US President accused the pontiff of supporting illegal immigration from Mexico. The pontiff, in turn, questioned the religious beliefs of the then presidential candidate.

Smoothing out the differences was especially important for the White House, because the pontiff is the spiritual leader for 50 million American Catholics. Plus, the Pope's support is extremely important for foreign policy. Much, judging by the official commentary of the Holy See, has worked out.

"The discussion was cordial. They discussed the fact that good bilateral relations have existed for a long time between the Holy See and the United States. They also discussed further cooperation," Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said.

And now, after his conversation with Trump, Pope Francis looks much more relaxed and benevolent.

"What did you feed your husband last night? Potica?" - the Pope asked Melinia Trump.

"Poticei? Oh, yes!" - she answered after a hesitation, apparently deciding that Francis was talking about pizza. (Potica is a traditional Slovenian roll with nut filling, - approx. editorial staff).

After his visit to the Vatican, Trump met briefly with the president and prime minister of Italy. We discussed the upcoming G7 summit in Sicily. There, according to Italian media, the focus will be on the fight against terrorism.

But the American media are focused on something else. All newspapers wrote: the first lady of the United States, during a trip to Rome, again refused to take her husband’s hand. Instead, she started straightening her hair. The same thing happened a few days ago in Tel Aviv. There, Melania Trump completely dismissed her husband. It was like a black cat ran by, journalists note. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that the spouses do not live together. Trump, as befits a president, is in Washington, and Melania is in New York.

Olga Oksenich, Georgy Mogunov. "TV Center".

0 May 24, 2017, 2:20 pm


Ivanka, Melania and Donald Trump with Pope Francis

While problems between the Trump spouses are raging online, Donald and Melania continue their tour of foreign countries. This time, the current American president is in the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis. The conversation between the head of the United States and the head of the Roman Catholic Church took place in the Apostolic Palace. In addition to his wife Melania, the president was accompanied by his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The meeting lasted only about 30 minutes, but what Trump and the Pope talked about has not yet been reported.


Donald Trump

Melania and Ivanka Trump attracted media attention with their outfits: the president's wife and daughter wore black dresses with lace details and accessorized with scarves, although this accessory is no longer a mandatory accessory for women at an official reception with the Pope. The images of the representatives of the president's family were in accordance with Vatican protocol, which does not allow the three colors of the Pope and church dignitaries to be worn in guests' attire - white, red and purple.

It is interesting that for an official meeting at the Vatican, Melania wore an outfit in accordance with customs, but in Saudi Arabia, the first lady of the United States did not take into account Muslim traditions: she covered her head with a scarf.



Donald Trump's meeting with Pope Francis is the third of the US president's nine-day foreign tour, which ends on Saturday. Prior to this, the US leader spoke with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These meetings are being vigorously discussed online, largely thanks to First Lady Melania Trump, who has already served as her husband and US President several times. And although this time she behaved friendly, network users cannot be fooled: they have long noticed that in the relationship of the spouses

US President Donald Trump, on a 9-day foreign tour, entered the world's smallest state - the Vatican - and was received today by its spiritual and temporal ruler - Pope Francis. This is the first meeting between the president of a superpower and the head of the Roman Catholic Church, to which 1.27 billion people in the world count themselves, including tens of millions of Americans who did not get along very well with each other in absentia and are generally antipodes.

The Apostolic Library brought face to face a billionaire businessman determined to run America as a profit-oriented corporation and a Jesuit pontiff whose mission was to help the poor and disadvantaged and to transform his church into a more effective instrument of influence in modern society.

The content of the conversation, which took place face to face, in the presence of only translators, is not reported. After its completion, Trump, who received a medallion depicting an olive branch as a symbol of peace as a gift, introduced his wife Melania and daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism after marriage, to Pope Francis. After his conversation with the Pope, he went to meet with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Secretary for Relations with States Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher. Today, before leaving for Brussels in the middle of the day, Trump will meet - without further communication with the press - with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and will hold talks with Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. The latter already met with Trump on April 20 in Washington, and two days later he will talk again “on the sidelines” of the G7 summit in Taormina in Sicily.

How did they get to this meeting?

The first Latin American pope, until recently, showed little enthusiasm for Trump and did not even consider him a “good Christian.” This assessment was influenced by Trump's promise to build a Wall between the United States and Catholic Mexico. However, closer to today's audience, Pope Francis softened - they say that he meets with all heads of state who ask for it (which, by the way, his predecessor Joseph Ratzinger did not do), and that you cannot judge a person before you talk and listen to him.

The Protestant president and the Jesuit pontiff are antipodes, but some of their goals are common. Photo: Alessandra Tarantino/AP/TASS

“In a conversation, everyone will express what they think. The doors should always remain open for conversation. This is the only way to build the world step by step, day after day.”, Francis said, answering a question from reporters about expectations from the upcoming meeting with Trump. He expressed the hope that "America will continue to be seen as a power that puts the poor, the disadvantaged and migrants first." Although, judging by the draft budget prepared in the United States, priority is given to increasing military spending while cutting social programs. So these hopes of the pontiff will most likely not come true.

Indeed, Trump’s plans to build the Wall have stalled (for now, he intends to build not the entire Wall, but only parts of it, for which the draft budget includes a modest amount of $1.6 billion). The trend toward the fading of this initiative cannot but please the Pope, since the “wonderful, beautiful Wall” that Trump promised to ask for would have hurt the interests of Mexican Catholics and generally would have contradicted the idea of ​​bridges that the current Pope calls for to build instead of walls.

What separates President Trump and Pope Francis and what unites them?

And yet, the powerful interlocutors, secluded from prying ears in the Apostolic Library, still have much in common.

This is, firstly, the attitude towards the problem of migration, which Trump wants to seriously limit and considers “a privilege, not a right,” and the head of the Vatican welcomes it for humanitarian and possibly proselytizing reasons. Secondly, this is climate change, which the current US president practically does not acknowledge, at least for the reasons that it supposedly causes. Third is the non-proliferation of weapons, which Trump wants to produce and sell on an unprecedented scale. On the last two points, the Vatican thinks differently.

However, in some ways the views of President Trump and the Jesuit Pope are quite the same. For example, the need to put an end to crimes in order to squeeze Christianity out of its cradle - the Middle East - and so that peace could finally come there. At the Middle East stage of his first presidential voyage, Trump addressed Muslim countries with a call to fight religious radicalism and extremism. The Pope also made similar calls.

In addition, of course, Trump, despite his third marriage, and even more so Pope Francis, despite the modernist traits in his behavior and policies, are united by a commitment to conservative values, at least, so to speak, the good old modernity .

What will the Vatican and the United States get from Trump's audience with the pontiff?

By agreeing on the audience, the United States and the Vatican confirmed that they value each other and are ready to use mutual weight, influence and prestige in their interests. America needs this in its relations with nominally Catholic countries. This is also necessary for the Vatican, which has serious interests in the United States, which ranks fourth among the countries in the world in terms of the number of Catholics (about 90 million people), whose Catholic prelates control 60% of the finances of the Roman Catholic Church. She also needs this from a global perspective - so that the church is taken more seriously in the rest of the world, so that no one else asks “how many divisions the Vatican has.” The USA has quite enough of them.

The US Catholic Church is the richest in the world. Photo: Orhan Cam/shutterstock.com

Why else would Trump seek an audience?

In the 2016 presidential election, 52% of Catholics voted for Trump, according to polls. They were not embarrassed that Democrats and other opponents accused him of racism, misogyny, sexism, open marriage, because they were afraid that if Hillary Clinton, who was favored even by some American Catholic hierarchs, won, the religious rights of citizens would be curtailed and encouraged sexual minorities and abortion. While Trump positioned himself as the “last hope” of Christians and promised to fight for their rights. It is clear that in the context of a steady decline in his ratings, Trump is interested in strengthening his position in this politically important segment of American society. And what better meets this task than numerous photographs and television reports of communication with the Pope?

In general, although Pope Francis did not seem very pleased before and after communicating with Trump, the positive for both as a result of the meeting was probably greater than the negative. But we will not know about this immediately, or even indirectly.

Illustration copyright Getty Images

Melania Trump arrived at the Vatican on Wednesday wearing a long black dress, long sleeves and a black veil.

Her choice of toilet, and especially an elegant veil, or more precisely, a mantilla, did not go unnoticed by those who closely followed the First Lady during her husband's first foreign presidential visit.

Among them was BBC North America editor John Sopel.

“An interesting observation,” he wrote on Twitter. “Melania Trump came to the meeting with the pontiff wearing a headdress, but in Saudi Arabia she was without it.”

But the BBC's Rome correspondent David Willey was not surprised. When meeting with the Pope, a strict protocol is observed, of which the White House has been informed.

Illustration copyright Reuters Image caption Melania has appeared in public in Saudi Arabia with her head uncovered, which is discouraged by the country's strict rules for women.

To see this, just look at the Vatican website, which outlines the rules for papal audiences, especially those held indoors: modest clothing, covered arms and shoulders.

Illustration copyright Getty Images Image caption Queen Elizabeth II also adhered to protocol during her meeting with Pope John Paul II in October 1980

“We're talking about a spectrum of possibilities, from a lace mantilla to a simple black veil,” says our correspondent. “When the British queen met the pope when she was younger, she was dressed like a Spanish infanta.”

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Typically, heads of state and their spouses dress in black. The protocol provides for only one exception, known as white privilege: it applies to Catholic queens and the wives and widows of Catholic monarchs.

Mrs. Trump's predecessors followed these rules. Michelle Obama wore a veil when meeting Pope Benedict in 2009, as did Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton when visiting the Vatican.

Illustration copyright Getty Images Image caption Michelle Obama covered her hair during a meeting with Pope Benedict in 2009

But there are those, of course, who prefer to ignore these protocols.

When Tony Blair's wife Cherie showed up to a papal audience in 2006 dressed in white, it caused an outcry. Less sharply reacted to the appearance of the Prince of Wales's wife, Camilla, in the Vatican in April of this year in a golden-colored suit and without a headdress.

“The rules have become less strict in recent years,” a Vatican spokesman confirmed to the Daily Telegraph.

Despite this softening, Melania Trump chose to stick firmly to tradition. Possibly because she is considered a Catholic, as evidenced by her request for the Pope to bless her rosary during the visit.

It should be noted that her stepdaughter Ivanka, who also did not cover her head while in Saudi Arabia, is not a Catholic, as she converted to Judaism. But she also wore a veil while visiting the Vatican.

Illustration copyright Reuters Image caption Camilla did not consider it necessary to dress in black during her visit to the Vatican in April this year

David Willey was particularly impressed by Melania's choice of dress.

"In my opinion, Mrs. Trump made an excellent choice. She was dressed very elegantly, and exactly in tone for the event," he says. "And in general, the entire presidential entourage completely followed the protocol and dress code."

But why didn't they cover their heads in Saudi Arabia? In fact, according to the rules there, high-ranking foreign guests are not required to cover their heads - such a requirement only applies to Saudi women.

Moreover, as Melania Trump's communications director Stephanie Grisham told CNN, while the Vatican informed the White House of its wishes for the protocol for the visit, the Saudi authorities made no such requests.

 

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