Papal call on Aquino only ‘a personal meeting’

Pope Francis together with President Aquino upon arrival at the Presidential Hangar in Villamor Airbase in Pasay City. PDI/Edwin Bacasmas

Don’t expect the first official appointment in the Pope’s schedule—a courtesy call on President Aquino at the presidential palace Friday morning—to be a policy discussion. “Normally, these meetings are not long, profound discussions of issues,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, SJ told local and foreign reporters in a press briefing.

Pope Francis arrived at 5:32 pm on Thursday to begin a five-day state and pastoral visit to the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country that accounts for more than half of all Catholics in Asia. He is scheduled to arrive in Malacanang Palace at 9:15 a.m., for an hour-long meeting with Mr. Aquino. The meeting will be followed by a 30-minute meeting with the diplomatic corps, also in the Palace.

“The Pope prefers a personal encounter,” Lombardi said. “He is more attentive to the personality of the interlocutor, than the political (issues).” He added: “The meeting with the President will be a personal meeting.”

But Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman since Pope, now Saint, John Paul II, noted that Francis’ “charism” (or gift) for the personal also had more practical uses. “The fascination, the charism, also helps very much to solve other issues.”

He did not give any specifics, but the recent breakthrough in US-Cuban ties was a direct result of Pope Francis’ personal involvement in the Vatican’s diplomatic initiative, which was led by his close friend Jaime Cardinal Ortega, Archbishop of Havana.

Lombardi also noted that the Pope’s “first public statement [of the Philippine visit] will be at the presidential palace.” Two other “important public statements” will be read on Friday: the homily during the Mass at the Manila Cathedral and the Pope’s remarks in his “Meeting with Families” at the Mall of Asia Arena.