President Joe Biden and Pope Francis rekindled their tight friendship on Friday, meeting for 90 minutes, which was twice as long as the President’s first encounter with a pontiff, with Pope John Paul II.
On Friday, US Vice President Joe Biden arrived at the Vatican to meet Pope Francis, as part of a European trip that includes the G20 conference and UN climate negotiations.
The presidential motorcade carrying Biden and his wife Jill passed through St Peter’s Square before heading to the Apostolic Palace, where they were met by a line of Swiss Guards.
The occasion was the Third International Regenerative Medicine Conference, and Biden made an impassioned plea for new remedies for the disease that claimed his son’s life in a speech delivered in front of a gigantic bronze sculpture of the Resurrection.
But he also remembered a wonderful gesture from his host, Pope Francis, who paid a visit to the United States in the months after Beau’s death and gathered with Biden’s extended family as he flew out of Philadelphia International Airport.
