Biden set for audience with Pope Francis in a meeting heavy with symbolism for America's second Catholic president

The last time President Joe Biden visited the Vatican, he was still reeling from the loss of his son Beau to cancer a year earlier.

Biden returns to the Vatican on Friday to meet a Pope, who has provided both familial comfort and ideological inspiration, to a President whose faith has long underpinned his public and private lives. While areas of common ground are expected to be discussed, it's not clear whether the Vatican will put Biden in the hot seat.

The meeting will be heavy with symbolism for the nation's second Catholic President, who attends Mass almost every week, makes the sign of the cross during his speeches, and displays a photo of Francis in the Oval Office alongside frames of his wife and grandchildren. Biden met with John Paul II several times, first kicked off by a lengthy meeting at the Vatican in 1980 to discuss the impacts of the potential collapse of the Soviet bloc, when Biden said the pope had to wave away aides who knocked on the library door several times during the conversation. But the President appears to have forged an even more personal bond with Pope Francis.

Unlike his past meetings with Francis, Biden is now the president, elevating their talks to an official encounter between two heads of state. Still, it is unlikely Biden's deep Catholic faith will not inform and guide his audience. Biden, who himself thought of becoming a priest after the deaths of his wife and daughter, maintains friendships and seeks guidance of several people in the spiritual community. A source familiar with the situation told CNN the President maintains a"circle of friends close to him, with whom he talks freely about his faith in spiritual matters."

The Pope should admonish Biden for his abortion stance. A Catholic who promotes killing of innocent babies are not Catholics/Christians. Who will protect the weak, and the voiceless?

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