Head of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Francis today welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump to the Vatican for their first face-to-face meeting.
The two leaders have diametrically opposing views on issues as varied as immigration, climate change and arms sales.
According to the New York Times, yesterday Cardinal Peter Turkson, a top Vatican official with close ties to Francis, acknowledged the differences in a post on Twitter: “Pope Francis & Pres Trump reach out to Islam-world to exorcise it of rel. Violence. One offers peace of dialogue, the other security of arms,” he wrote, in an apparent reference to the $110 billion weapons sale that Mr. Trump concluded with Saudi Arabia.
In February last year, Pope Francis responded to a question about the President’s hard line against immigrants and his desire to build a wall along the border with Mexico, telling reporters, “a person who only thinks about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”
Trump, a candidate at the time, swiftly returned fire. “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” he said at a campaign rally in South Carolina.
“No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith. If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’ ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president,” he continued.