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 32 meetings between six popes and 14 U.S. presidents over the past century.
No. | Date | Site | City | Country | President | Pope | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | January 4, 1919 | Apostolic Palace[1] | 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[2] | Dwight D. Eisenhower | John XXIII | |||
3 | July 2, 1963 | Vatican City[3] | 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[4][5] | 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.[6][7] | |
5 | December 23, 1967 | Vatican City[8] | Unannounced stop at the end of the president's visit to Australia and Asia.[7] | ||||
6 | March 2, 1969 | Vatican City[9] | Richard Nixon | ||||
7 | September 29, 1970 | Vatican City[9] | |||||
8 | June 3, 1975 | Vatican City[10] | Gerald Ford | ||||
9 | October 6, 1979 | White House[11] | Washington, D.C.[12] | United States | Jimmy Carter | John Paul II | First visit by a pope to the White House. |
10 | June 21, 1980 | Vatican City[13] | |||||
11 | June 7, 1982 | Vatican City[14] | Ronald Reagan | ||||
12 | May 2, 1984 | Fairbanks International Airport | Fairbanks, Alaska[12] | 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.[15] | ||
13 | June 6, 1987 | Vatican City[14] | |||||
14 | September 10, 1987 | Miami International Airport[16] and the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens[17] | Miami, Florida[12] | United States | |||
15 | May 27, 1989 | Vatican City[18] | George H. W. Bush | ||||
16 | November 8, 1991 | Vatican City[18] | |||||
17 | August 12, 1993 | Regis University[19] | Denver, Colorado[12] | United States | Bill Clinton | Both leaders addressed thousands of young students at World Youth Day.[20] | |
18 | June 2, 1994 | Vatican City[21] | |||||
19 | October 4, 1995 | Newark Liberty International Airport[22] | Newark, New Jersey[12] | United States | |||
20 | January 26, 1999 | St. Louis Lambert International Airport[23] | St. Louis, Missouri[12] | United States | |||
21 | July 23, 2001 | Palace of Castel Gandolfo[Note 1] | Castel Gandolfo[24] | Italy | George W. Bush | ||
22 | May 28, 2002 | Vatican City[24] | |||||
23 | June 4, 2004 | Vatican City[24] | President Bush presented Pope John Paul II with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[25] | ||||
24 | June 9, 2007 | Vatican City[24] | Benedict XVI | ||||
25 | April 15–16, 2008 | White House[11] | Washington, D.C.[26][27] | United States | |||
26 | June 13, 2008 | Vatican City[24] | |||||
27 | July 10, 2009 | Vatican City[28][29][30][31] | Barack Obama | ||||
28 | March 27, 2014 | Vatican City[32][33] | Francis | ||||
29 | September 22–23, 2015 | White House[11] | Washington, D.C.[34][35] | United States | |||
30 | May 24, 2017 | Vatican City[36] | Donald Trump | Occurred during President Trump's visit to Israel, the West Bank, Italy, and Saudi Arabia.[37] The meeting proceeded amicably despite prior public disagreements between the two on environmental policy and Trump's proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall.[37][38] | |||
31 | October 29, 2021 | Vatican City[39] | 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. | |||
32 | June 14, 2024 | Borgo Egnazia | Fasano | Italy | President Biden and Pope Francis participated in the 50th G7 summit and later held a bilateral meeting.[40] |
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.[41]
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.[42] Bush was the first incumbent U.S. president to attend a papal funeral.[43]
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.[44]
While Joe Biden was serving as a U.S. Senator, he met with Pope John Paul II on April 12, 1980 at the Vatican.[45] 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.[46][47]
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.[48]
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.[49]
Nancy Reagan met Pope John Paul II at the Vatican on May 4, 1985[50] while President Ronald Reagan was attending the 11th G7 summit in Bonn, West Germany.[51] Mrs. Reagan met the pontiff again on September 16, 1987 in Los Angeles[52] 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.[53]
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.[54]
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."[55]
President Ronald Reagan shakes hands with Pope John Paul II on Sept. 10, 1987, at Miami International Airport.
On August 12, 1993, Regis University hosted a meeting and press conference with Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton at the Northwest Denver Campus.
The visit...began at Newark International Airport with 2,000 New Jersey parochial school students cheering him like a rock star and President Clinton hailing him as a model pilgrim of peace in a troubled world.
The Holy Father arrived at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, USA...where he was greeted by President William J. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
June 4, 2004...Pope John Paul II
Waiting for Francis: President Obama, who rarely greets arriving foreign dignitaries on the runway.
The day began with Mr. Obama welcoming the pope at the White House.
President Biden, a devout Catholic who has nonetheless found himself at odds with many faithful over his support of abortion rights, met Friday at the Vatican with Pope Francis, where the leaders discussed climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and global poverty.
A highlight of the trip came for Biden April 12 when he spent 45 minutes alone with Pope John Paul in the pontiff's private library at the Vatican.
Francis greeted the vice president after giving his own address, and the two leaders shook hands and smiled.
Speaking to Vice President George Bush and a farewell crowd amid tight security at Detroit Metropolitan Airport...
The audience was the high point of the first lady's 46-hour visit to Italy. She was to have lunch with U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican William Wilson and his wife, Betty, and then fly back to Bonn, where President Reagan is attending the 11th annual economic summit.
Meet with Pope John Paul II, and Schoolchildren, re: Anti-Drug Program.