Polish President meets Pope Francis in Vatican

Their face-to-face meeting lasted twenty minutes and focused on next year’s World Youth Day with the Pope in the Polish city of Kraków and the 1,050th anniversary of the Baptism of Poland.

In the second part of the audience, the President was joined by the First Lady, their nineteen year-old daughter and members of the Polish delegation.

Following the audience, Duda expressed joy at having the opportunity to have a personal meeting with the Pope and asked him for prayers.

Having offered the Pope a gift – a copy of the image of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa – the President wished that the Mother of God had the Pope under her protection. The Pontiff responded by saying that this is what he needed very much.

His gifts for the Polish President were a papal medal featuring the tree of peace and the Polish-language edition of his latest encyclical Laudato si devoted to ecology.

After the papal audience, President Duda had a meeting with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.

Later in the day, President Andrzej Duda is to lay a wreath at the monument to Marshal Jozef Piłsudski in Rome. It was erected in 1937 as a tribute to one of the architects of Polish independence.

Duda is also to bestow honours on Poles working at the Vatican and meet with members of the Polish community at the Polish Embassy.

The President and the First Lady arrived in Rome on Sunday afternoon and attended a mass at St Peter's Basilica, at the tomb of the Polish Pope, Saint John Paul II. (mk/rg/di)