Obama welcomes Pope Francis to U.S. at start of six-day visit

WASHINGTON – Pope Francis arrived from Cuba on Tuesday to start a six-day, three-city tour of America, his first official visit to a nation bitterly divided on global warming, income inequality and other contentious issues that the popular pontiff is likely to champion.

President Barack Obama and his family, as well as Vice President Joe Biden and his grandchildren, welcomed Francis with handshakes and an honor guard at the military’s Joint Base Andrews, just outside the capital.

The 78-year-old pope clutched his white skullcap, called a zucchetto, in his hand as a stiff wind whipped his white hair and cassock.

He and Obama conversed but did not speak to the crowd before Francis climbed into a modest Fiat sedan and, waving from the window, was driven off to spend the night at the Vatican’s diplomatic mission, leaving Obama on the runway.

The brief red carpet ceremony was a heady departure from staid White House protocol, one that reflects the global celebrity and unusual appeal of the first Latin American pope.

Officials are bracing for record-sized crowds, traffic nightmares and bustling vendors when the pontiff rides in his open “popemobile” near the White House, when he celebrates Mass at cavernous Madison Square Garden in New York City, and when he presides over an open air Festival of the Families on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, among other stops on a packed itinerary.

For Francis, the visit marks an important effort to revitalize the American Catholic Church, which has been weakened by the sexual abuse scandal and challenged by parishioners who hold more liberal views on contraception, gay marriage, and other social issues.

The Argentine-born pope also has a unique opportunity to reach Latinos, the fastest growing group of Catholics in America, who are giving churches their vitality.

U.S. political leaders, in turn, have tried to capitalize on Francis’ immense popularity and moral authority, seizing issues that align most closely with their own agendas.

In his 2  1/2 years as pope, Francis has stressed alleviating poverty and saving the Earth as well as traditional teachings against abortion and for traditional families.

As a result, when he visits the White House early Wednesday as his first official stop, he will face some Americans whom previous popes almost certainly would have avoided.

Obama has invited several pro-choice Catholics, transgender activists and advocates for gay marriage to join a reception on the South Lawn, despite their doctrinal differences with Francis, who recently called the rise of LGBT equality “a new sin against God.”

While some U.S. critics expressed outrage at the invitations, a Vatican spokesman denied reports that the pope’s aides had objected. The Vatican “never comments on those invited by a head of state to be present for a welcoming ceremony of the pope,” said the Rev. Thomas Rosica.

But Vatican officials have hinted that Francis may use his address to both houses of Congress on Thursday – the first pope to do so – or another stop in Washington to speak about the sanctity of life and his opposition to capital punishment, issues where he is at odds with Obama.

“This pope is a very independent figure, and we know from his previous travels that we don’t know what he’s going to say until he says it,” said Charlie Kupchan, a top national security adviser to Obama. “And in that respect, we are fully expecting that there will be some messages with which we may respectfully disagree or have differences.”

Obama and Francis met in March 2014 at the Vatican, and the pope subsequently helped broker a diplomatic detente between the United States and Cuba that ended more than five decades of official estrangement when diplomatic ties were restored this summer.

Obama came away from that first meeting speaking of empathy, of the “ability to stand in somebody else’s shoes and to care for someone even if they don’t look like you or share your philosophy.”

The two leaders also agree on the need to slow the burning of fossil fuels to combat climate change, to do more to reduce poverty and income inequality, and on the need for reforming immigration and prisons to ease suffering.

During planning for the papal visit, administration officials could scarcely hide their hopes for what it might mean for their joint agenda.

“On many of the big-ticket items,” Kupchan said, “like climate change, like fighting inequality, like fighting poverty, like reaching out to people in distress and people in need, his essential messages will resonate very much with the president’s agenda. And in that respect, we are hoping that his moral authority helps us advance many of the items that we take to be very high on our policy agenda.”

Congressional Republicans, who failed to advance a vote Tuesday to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks, have seized on Francis’ focus on the sanctity of life and his defense of other conservative church doctrine, including opposition to same-sex marriage.