Biden to Meet With Pope Francis at G7 Summit in Italy

PUGLIA, Italy—The second day of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in southern Italy began on June 14 with back-to-back meetings of world leaders, featuring discussions about artificial intelligence (AI), climate change, China, and the Middle East.

Following these sessions, President Joe Biden will meet with Pope Francis privately on the sidelines of the summit.

President Biden and Pope Francis last met in October 2021 at the Vatican, where the president offered the Pope a “command coin” and praised him as “the most significant warrior for peace I’ve ever met.”

President Biden is the second Catholic U.S. president, after President John F. Kennedy.

Given the election year, a meeting with the Pope may have special significance for President Biden at the summit.

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It has become increasingly common for U.S. presidents to meet and shake hands with popes since 1959, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower met with Pope John XXIII at the Vatican, John Gizzi, a political columnist at Newsmax who has written on Catholics and the Vatican, told The Epoch Times.

However, among Hispanic voters, the picture is quite different. They prefer President Biden over former President Trump by 49 to 47 percent.

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Ernesto Castaneda, a sociology professor and director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, said he believes that the majority of Latino voters will cast their ballots for Democrats in the upcoming election, but at a lesser rate than in prior elections.

“Like white voters, Latinos are a diverse population and vote differently depending on their education, profession, gender, and place of residence,” he told The Epoch Times.

However, President Biden’s meeting with the Pope is significant and may remind voters that he has always been a Catholic, he noted.

“When there are so many pressing humanitarian world issues, this meeting between President Biden and the Pope is important,” Mr. Castaneda said.

The Pope is attending the G7 summit to deliver a speech on AI during a special session. This will be the first time in Vatican history that a pope will participate in a G7 meeting, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier said.

Developing and using AI ethically has been a key priority for Ms. Meloni, who is hosting this year’s summit in the southern Italian region of Puglia.

She has voiced concerns about the impact of this technology on the labor market and claimed that it could eliminate the need for people, widening the income gap around the world if not governed properly.

“AI is a means; it can be a good or a bad one. It depends on our capacity to govern it, to tackle the risks and the impact it can have, for example, on the labor market,” she said during her meeting with President Biden at the White House on March 1.

The Vatican launched an initiative called “Rome Call for AI Ethics” several years ago. The initiative has drawn support from some well-known companies, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco.