President Barack Obama’s upcoming White House meeting with Pope Francis will mark the latest chapter in a growing relationship between two men with often-similar priorities. But behind the scenes, Obama aides are working to avoid politicizing the papal visit, even as they hope to capitalize on it.

That will likely mean praising and deferring to Francis, whose calls for action against climate change and mass incarceration dovetail with the president's vision, but taking care not to explicitly link the pope to Obama's legislative agenda. It's the type of balancing act that will affect everything from what policy initiatives Obama announces in conjunction with the papal visit to what gift he gives the popular pontiff.


“There’s been pressure on the administration to make this a political moment, but they’ve rejected that,” said a person familiar with the White House’s planning. “They’re going to not force the narrative that Francis and Obama are political besties.”

Obama has made no secret of his admiration for the pope, whom he first met at the Vatican in March 2014. He has called Francis a "transformative leader" and cited the pope in efforts to promote his own stances on issues, such as alleviating poverty. The president even name-checked Francis in his State of the Union address this year when discussing his administration’s decision to restore ties to Cuba, an initiative the pope helped push through.

The two don’t agree on everything — Francis has not changed the Vatican’s opposition to abortion nor its stance against same-sex marriage. Still, the pontiff’s decision to visit Washington later this month (he also will speak to Congress, among other traffic-stopping events) is largely seen as a boon to the Democratic president.

Administration officials, while declining to offer details, said a papal visit requires different protocols than visits by other high-profile figures. For one thing, Francis is both a head of state and a religious leader, so the planning involves officials who deal with Europe as well as those in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The State Department plays a major role, even offering recommendations on dress (modesty being the theme) for people who get to meet with the pope.

“The visit cuts across traditional policy boundaries within the United States,” a senior administration official said.

Obama would hardly be the first president to turn to the pope for a strategic benefit — Ronald Reagan forged an alliance with John Paul II to undermine Soviet communism. But so far, Vatican and presidential experts say, Obama has handled his interactions and references to Francis with appropriate care, invoking him more as a moral force than a political adviser. If Obama were to start mentioning specific pieces of legislation, he could be viewed as crossing a line.

"Essentially, the president can’t talk about any specific policy except for maybe some foreign policy areas, like concern about the Syrian migration and refugee issue. But beyond that, anything that's domestic public policy that’s specific the president has to stay away from, because that would be trading on the authenticity of the moment," said Stephen Schneck, who heads a policy institute at the Catholic University of America.

The White House has indicated it will announce some policy initiatives in conjunction with the pope's visit but would not give details. The person familiar with the planning, though, said that it would likely be an initiative with bipartisan support — a rarity in Washington these days. One possibility is an effort linked to criminal justice reform, which has supporters among both Democrats and Republicans.

The administration also may use the days ahead of Francis' visit and the weeks afterward to make some moves on areas with less bipartisan support, but it will be careful not to draw direct links between the pontiff and the policies, the person familiar with the planning said. New environmental regulations are one possibility. Earlier this month, amid growing international pressure, the White House announced the U.S. would take in 10,000 more Syrian refugees over the next year in response to the migration crisis in the Middle East and Europe — a topic especially dear to Francis' heart.

By all accounts, Francis has a keen sense of politics, even though his view of the world doesn't square with the classic political divisions in the United States. He is expected to call on Americans to set aside those differences and unite politically to take on an array of challenges. When asked how far the president could go in invoking Francis before critics accuse him of going too far, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, said it's "just a fact of life" that almost anything the pope says can be used by one group or another for its own benefit.

"Maybe that’s one of the things that this Holy Father is asking us to try to get a little bit beyond, and that is can we find some common ground without having to start immediately with interpreting it from a vantage point of 'my position'?" Wuerl said.

The pope's two predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II, visited the White House, so there are some precedents to follow, but in many ways Francis' visit is getting far more attention. He has poll numbers a presidential candidate would kill for, so tickets for his events are a very hot item. The 78-year-old Francis is the first pope from Latin America, meaning a surge of interest from America's growing Hispanic population (he'll spend some time in Cuba before flying to Washington). He'll also be the first pope to speak to a joint meeting of Congress.

The president will personally greet the pope when he lands at Andrews Air Force Base on Sept. 22, a courtesy almost never extended to other visiting leaders. (Then-President George W. Bush greeted Benedict upon his arrival in 2008, setting a papal precedent.)

Thousands of people are expected to be present for the pope's appearance at the White House on Sept. 23. Among those invited by the White House is Aaron Ledesma, who has chronicled what it's like to be gay and Catholic on a blog. The much-coveted invitations are expected to reach a diverse array of people well beyond the church.

Francis has a packed schedule in Washington, including a Catholic Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception whose attendees are expected to include Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who is a Catholic convert. But he's also known to act spontaneously, and Vatican observers say it wouldn't be surprising if he added stops to his itinerary, perhaps with the president in tow. After all, it's the first time Francis, who grew up in Argentina, has ever visited the United States, where he will also make stops in New York and Philadelphia.

In his encounters with the pope, Obama cannot go wrong in effusively praising him or by talking a bit about his own Christian faith, Vatican and White House watchers said. "The best thing for the president to do would be to just be as joyful and excited and welcoming as he can be," Schneck said.

One of the most challenging decisions could be what to give the pope as a gift. Although the Vatican is famously wealthy and opulent, Francis has eschewed many of the gilded trappings of the papacy, choosing, for instance, to live in a modest guesthouse instead of the traditional papal apartment at the Apostolic Palace. The gift, therefore, needs to be humble but not cheap, and also devoid of any partisan symbolism.

The president has the final say on what gift he will offer Francis, according to the State Department. When Obama visited with Francis at the Vatican, he gave him a custom-made seed chest that held fruit and vegetable seeds used in the White House garden.

Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, said that in some ways, attacks on Obama's religious beliefs (critics have falsely claimed he is a Muslim to undermine his political support) have given the president more room to maneuver with the pope.



Pope Francis and Barack Obama laugh as they exchange gifts during a private audience on March 27, 2014 at the Vatican. | Getty



The president, while not Catholic, has had many Catholic influences in his life, including during his days in Chicago as a community organizer. Like Obama, Francis has a history of reaching out to the poor and the underserved.

"The argument that so many have made that Obama is not connected enough to Western values doesn’t really square with a partnership between a pope and president," Farnsworth said. "Obama can go a long ways in working with the pope before he’s going to run into much trouble.

"We’re talking about two community organizers who have a great deal in common. They just happen to be at the moment pope and president.”