Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign rally at Washington Square on April 13 in New York. | AP Photo Pope spokesman: No plans to meet with Sanders

There is no meeting with Bernie Sanders on Pope Francis' schedule, according to the pontiff's chief spokesman.

The Vermont senator and 2016 presidential candidate is visiting the Vatican on Friday for a conference organized by an institute with ties to the church and was hoping for a chance to sit down with a man he says he greatly admires.


"It is not on the schedule," the Rev. Federico Lombardi confirmed to POLITICO in an email on Thursday. Lombardi did not say whether the schedule could change.

A week earlier, Sanders' campaign announced that the Vatican had invited him to the conference, sparking some confusion due to the suggestion that Sanders had been invited by Pope Francis himself.

But the conference was organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, an autonomous entity that takes some funding from the Holy See but is not formally a part of the Roman Catholic Church.