By Elise Ann Allen

ROME — On Monday U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken enjoyed a private visit to the Sistine Chapel before sitting down to a closed-door meeting with Pope Francis as part of a broader tour of Europe.

Speaking to the journalists during a June 28 press conference alongside Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, Blinken spoke of his 40-minute meeting with Pope Francis earlier that day, saying, “let me just say on a personal level what an honor it was.”

The meeting, he said, “was very warm and extremely wide-ranging. We covered a lot of ground and I certainly don’t want to speak for His Holiness, but just speaking for myself, speaking for the United States, I was very gratified.”

Blinken praised what he said was the “strong leadership” shown by Pope Francis during the coronavirus pandemic and on issues such as climate change, the migrant and refugee crisis, “and more broadly, maybe most important of all, his leadership on the basic proposition that we have to stand for human dignity in everything we do to the best of our ability.”

“One of the luxuries of my job is that I don’t do domestic politics…And so I will simply say that it was truly a wonderful and memorable moment (that) I had the opportunity to speak to His Holiness and have such a warm and wide range conversation,” he said. 

Asked for reaction to statements by Pope Francis earlier this year that COVID-19 vaccines were a duty and that denying the seriousness of COVID-19 was “suicidal,” Blinken said that he does not speak for the pope, but personally believes “in the importance of vaccinations” and would like to see people around the world get vaccinated “as quickly as possible.”

“Here is the reality that we are facing: as long as the virus is replicating somewhere it’s likely to be mutating, and as long as it is mutating there is the distinct possibility that it comes back and bites even those who have been vaccinated,” he said, stressing the need to “be ahead of this.”

“That’s why Italy and the United States are working so closely together, to make sure that we get vaccines out there,” he said. 

Blinken’s June 28 visit to the Vatican to meet with the pope was the first by a high-ranking official from U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration. 

In addition to his private tour of the Sistine Chapel, Blinken met with other top Holy See officials, including the Vatican Secretary of State, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and its Secretary for Relations with States, English Archbishop Paul Gallagher. 

In a statement following the 40-minute meeting, a Vatican spokesman said the conversation took place “in a cordial atmosphere,” and that Pope Francis recalled his visit to the United States in 2015 and expressed his “affection and attention” for the people of the United States.

In two separate tweets sent after his visit to the Vatican, Blinken expressed gratitude for the meetings, saying “today I had the great pleasure of touring the Vatican, including the beautiful Sistine Chapel. The spiritual atmosphere, the divine art, and the impressive architecture left me speechless. Truly stunning.”

Referring to his meeting with Cardinal Parolin and Archbishop Gallagher, Blinken said he enjoyed the conversation, which “emphasized continued cooperation on efforts to promote our shared values and address humanitarian crises around the world.”

Blinken’s stop in Italy is part of a broader June 22-29 trip to Europe, which has included stops in Berlin and Paris. 

During his Italy visit, Blinken also held bilateral meetings with Italian Foreign Minister Luigi De Maio and Italian President Sergio Mattarella. As part of his visit, he co-chaired a meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS with Maio and participated in a ministerial meeting on Syria to evaluate the country’s ongoing crisis and numerous humanitarian needs. 

He is scheduled to travel to Bari and Matera late Monday, where he will participate in a G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting to discuss issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and COVID recovery with global partners, with an emphasis on Africa.

Although it’s not guaranteed that every high-level official who comes through Rome will be granted an audience with the pope, people such as the U.S. Secretary of State are generally offered the meeting. 

In June 2003, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was granted an audience with Pope John Paul II, and in 2016, then-Secretary of State John Kerry received an audience with Pope Francis during a visit to Italy for a global meeting on the crisis in the Mediterranean region.

Mike Pompeo, who served as Secretary of State under President Donald Trump, met with Pope Francis during a visit to the Vatican in 2019 while on a European tour but was denied a meeting when he returned in September 2020 for a summit on religious freedom. 

At the time, the Vatican was negotiating the renewal of a provisional agreement on bishops’ appointments with China, a decision which drew criticism not only from some Catholics but also U.S. political leaders.

Prior to his visit to Italy, Pompeo had publicly criticized the Vatican’s China policy in an article published in the conservative magazine First Things, during which he said the Vatican and the pope risked losing their “moral authority” on issues such as religious freedom if the deal was renewed given rumors of human rights abuses and crackdowns on religion in China. 

The first meeting between Holy See and officials in the Biden administration has been highly anticipated, as it comes on the heels of a vote from the U.S. bishops to draft a document on the Eucharist which, among other things, is expected to address the question of whether Catholic pro-choice politicians such as President Biden ought to be allowed to receive communion. 

Although Blinken himself is not Catholic, his wife Evan Ryan is. The two were married in a bi-denominational ceremony at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., which was officiated by a rabbi and a priest.