Source : the age
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will have a private meeting with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican within hours, setting up a personal invitation to the pontiff to visit Australia.
The Vatican confirmed the meeting on Monday in Rome, shortly after 8pm AEST, during a day of intense meetings with world leaders.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese briefly meeting with Pope Leo in the Vatican.
It is the first sit-down meeting between an Australian prime minister and a pope in 16 years, and it comes after Albanese met Pope Leo briefly on Sunday.
The first meeting was a short discussion and a handshake at St Peter’s Basilica alongside other world leaders, after the inauguration mass to confirm Leo as the new head of the Catholic Church.
The formal meeting on Monday sets up a longer discussion for Albanese to offer a direct invitation to the pope to visit Australia for a major Catholic gathering in Sydney in 2028.
Australian sources would not make a statement on the meeting with the pope, leaving it to the Vatican to release the details.
Pope Leo travelled several times to Australia as head of the Augustinian order, raising hopes among Catholic Church leaders that he would be willing to attend the World Eucharistic Congress in Sydney in 2028.
Albanese said on Sunday he had spoken briefly with Pope Leo after the inauguration mass.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in his Akubra at Vatican City.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“He expressed a warmth about Australia, and I told him that it was a great honour for me to be there,” the prime minister said. “I spoke to him about my mother, [who] is I’m sure looking down from heaven with the biggest smile she’s ever had.
“The fact that her son was at the inaugural mass of a pope in the Vatican, was quite extraordinary.
“He expressed his affection for Australia and I told him that Australia’s five million Catholics would be watching and wishing him well in his pontificate.”
More to come.
