The Democratic US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders brought his political revolution to the Vatican on Saturday, where he was granted a five-minute audience with Pope Francis.
Sanders, the Vermont senator challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, told reporters he had met the pontiff on Saturday morning and discussed the need to inject morality and justice into the world economy, a view Sanders said he and the pope both share.
“I told him that I was incredibly appreciative of the incredible role that he is playing in this planet in discussing issues about the need for an economy based on morality, not greed,” Sanders said.
The encounter was not Pope Francis’s first brush with the US presidential race. In February, the leader of the Catholic church waded into the contest when he questioned Republican frontrunner Donal Trump’s faith. “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian,” the Pope said, alluding to Trump’s pledge to build a wall between the US and Mexico.
Sanders and his wife, Jane, stayed overnight at the papal residence, in the Domus Santa Marta hotel in the Vatican gardens, on the same floor as the pope, and were spotted at the hotel reception carrying their own bags.
In an interview with ABC News after the meeting, Sanders called the pope “a beautiful man”, adding “I am not a Catholic, but there is a radiance that comes from him.”
“I just conveyed to him my admiration for the extraordinary work he is doing raising some of the most important issues facing our planet and the billions of people on the planet and injecting the need for morality in the global economy,” Sanders said.
Pope Francis said on Saturday that his meeting with Sanders was not meddling in politics and that anyone who thought otherwise should “look for a psychiatrist”.
“When I came down, I greeted him, I shook his hand and nothing more. This is called good manners and it is not getting involved in politics,” the pope told reporters in answer to a question aboard the plane returning from the Greek island of Lesbos, where he visited a refugee camp.
“If anyone thinks that greeting someone is getting involved in politics, I recommend that he look for a psychiatrist,” he said, laughing.
Dr Jeffrey Sachs, a Sanders foreign policy adviser and adviser to the UN on climate change, said there were no photographs taken of the meeting.
He said the couple met Pope Francis in the foyer of the hotel as he was leaving for Greece. The meeting lasted about five minutes, Sachs said.
The Democratic hopeful from Vermont has campaigned on a promise to rein in corporate power and level the economic playing field for working and lower-income Americans who he says have been left behind, a message echoing that of the pope.
The meeting came just days before Tuesday’s Democratic party primary in New York, where polls say he is trailing Hillary Clinton. After he won seven of the last eight state contests, a loss in Sanders’ home state would give front-runner Clinton a boost toward the party’s presidential nomination.
Sanders has said the trip was not a pitch for the Catholic vote but a testament to his admiration for the pontiff.
