Francis and Obama discuss ‘difficult’ issues

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA held his first meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican last week at which, according to the Vatican statement issued after the meeting, the two discussed “the exercise of the rights to religious freedom, life and conscientious objection”, writes Michael Sean Winters. This was an apparent reference to the US Catholic bishops’ struggle with the administration over the Affordable Care Act, that obliges unexempted employers to fund contraception cover as part of the President’s health-care reforms.

Mr Obama is also passionately pro-choice on abortion, and pro-gay marriage.

According to the Vatican statement, also discussed were a “range of international issues”, as well as human trafficking and immigration.

The White House did not issue a formal “readout” of the event, but at a press conference later in the day, Mr Obama said he and the Pope “actually did not touch in detail on the Affordable Care Act”. He said that in his subsequent meeting with Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “we discussed briefly the issue of making sure that conscience and religious freedom was observed in the context of applying the law.”  Mr Obama said he and the Pope spent the bulk of their time together discussing poverty and the need for peaceful resolutions to conflicts in various ­trouble spots throughout the world. “The theme that stitched our conversation together was a belief that in politics and in life the quality of empathy, the ability to stand in somebody else’s shoes and to care for someone even if they don’t look like you or talk like you or share your philosophy [is vital],” Mr Obama said.