Pope Francis once described the internet as a “gift from God”. But on Friday he is due to meet with someone who may believe the internet has more to do with his own company than divine intervention: Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google.

The pope, who more than a billion Catholics believe is God’s representative on Earth, will meet with the powerful Silicon Valley executive and philanthropist for 15 minutes at the Vatican in Rome.

A source close to the Vatican, who was familiar with the details of the meeting but not authorised to speak on the record, confirmed the brief meeting would take place on Friday. Another source familiar with the meeting said Schmidt was due to meet with the pope privately along with Jared Cohen, a former US state department official who is now head of Google Ideas. Schmidt co-wrote a book with Cohen in 2013 called The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business.

Google declined to respond to several requests for comment over the past 24 hours about the meeting. The planned encounter was first mooted in a barely noticed tweet two days ago by a man named Iacopo Scaramuzzi, who has been described on Twitter as a Vaticanista, or Vatican expert.

Pope Francis has admitted to not having a computer, but the 79-year-old is clearly not naive when it comes to the power of technology. The internet, he once said, is a “gift from God” because of its ability to offer “immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity”.

“This is something truly good,” he said in a seminal speech on technology in 2014, noting the importance of social media in what he has often referred to as the power of the “encounter”.

“In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one another, creating a sense of the unity of the human family which can in turn inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all,” he said.

He was the first pope to take his message regularly to Twitter, and the @pontifex account, first opened by Pope Benedict, now has 8.4 million followers. He’s hosted two Google Hangouts live from the Vatican.

An ardent critic of capitalism and inequality, the pope is not known to have met often with American business figures. During his visit to the US last year, he did not visit Silicon Valley or the Bay Area, which is fast emerging as one of the most unequal regions in America.

“On the global level we see a scandalous gap between the opulence of the wealthy and the utter destitution of the poor,” he said in the lengthy address on technology. “We should not overlook the fact that those who for whatever reason lack access to social media run the risk of being left behind.”

Schmidt, whose net worth is an estimated $10.6bn, is the executive chairman and in effect the global ambassador of Alphabet – the newly formed conglomerate which includes Google. He’s been politically active with liberal causes, donated to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and is a member of the White House’s council of advisors on science and technology.

Alphabet – a holding company created in October to hold Google, YouTube, Android and others – is worth about $500bn, making it one of the largest public companies in the world.The two share one common passion: environmentalism and the importance of sustainability.







