Vice President Mike Pence was granted a long meeting with Pope Francis on Friday and quipped that he emerged from the encounter feeling like “a hero” to his family.

Pence, who had a strict Irish Catholic upbringing but later converted to evangelical Protestantism, chatted with the pontiff in the papal library for about an hour — roughly twice as long as President Trump’s meeting the pope in the same frescoed room in May 2017.

During an exchange of gifts after the private talks, Francis gave Pence a small white box with a papal medal ­inside.

“I didn’t want to ask,” Pence said with a laugh as the pope handed him the box. “This is for mom.”

As he was leaving the papal library, the vice president, still clutching the small box, said: “Thank you, Your Holiness, you have made me a hero . . . God bless you.”

Pence was referring to the fact that the rest of his family remained in the Roman Catholic Church and that leaving the faith had put some strain on family relations.

With Reuters