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Wait and see? Pontiff to meet President in May
Not long ago, Pope Francis said he would “wait and see” before coming to any conclusions on Donald Trump. He won’t have to wait too long, according to Christopher Lamb in the Catholic journal The Tablet. The pontiff and the president will first confer on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Sicily, scheduled for May.
Assuming the meeting comes off as planned, it will follow a pattern that has emerged since the turn of the century. Both of Trump’s immediate predecessors had their first meetings with popes on the sidelines of G-8 economic conferences. That strategy gives both sides some distance from the pressures of state visits or bilateral summits, allowing leaders to get a sense of each other while having no particular expectations for agreements or other diplomatic outcomes.
That helps even more in this particular instance, where relations have already gotten off to a rocky start. The two clashed during the election campaign over Trump’s policy of building a wall on the US-Mexico border, resulting in a harsh public exchange that both sides quickly tried to quell. Trump’s decision to suspend entries from seven high-risk nations created more criticism from the Vatican and from some American bishops as well, and that may still be an issue when the two meet in May. The executive order imposed a 90-day pause on processing visa and refugee requests, but that got put on hold on Friday. Unless the courts intervene to lift the temporary restraining order on the EO, the 90-day pause may either still be in effect by the end of May or still waiting for implementation, which will clearly be a subject on which Pope Francis will want to be heard.
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