Dear Commons Community,

Reuters is reporting that Pope Francis met with Bernie Sanders in the Vatican this morning and that the two discussed the need for morality in the world economy before the pontiff left for a visit to the Greek island of Lesbos.  As reported by Reuters:

“Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Reuters that the meeting took place in the Vatican guesthouse where the pope lives and where Sanders had spent the night after addressing a Vatican conference on social justice.

The Vatican had said that a meeting between the two was not planned, and Sanders said he did not expect to meet the pope during his trip.

“He is a beautiful man,” Sanders said in an interview with ABC News after the meeting. “I am not a Catholic, but there is a radiance that comes from him.”

Sachs said Sanders, who was accompanied by his wife, spoke with the pope for about five minutes. Sachs, his wife, and Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, head of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, were also in the room.

“I just conveyed to him my admiration for the extraordinary work he is doing raising some of the most important issues facing our planet and the billions of people on the planet and injecting the need for morality in the global economy,” Sanders told ABC.”

Sanders has campaigned on a promise to rein in corporate power and level the economic playing field for working and lower-income Americans whom he says have been left behind, a message echoing that of the pope.

When Sachs, who has advised the United Nations on climate change, was asked if the meeting could be interpreted as political, he said: “This was absolutely not political. This is a senator who for decades has been speaking about the moral economy.”

Tony