Pope Leo XIV received David Axelrod at the Vatican on Thursday. The Vatican said nothing about it. Axelrod said nothing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those who say nothing sometimes say the most.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Axelrod is not a diplomat, not a churchman. He is the man who brought Barack Obama into the White House in 2008. In February, Obama said in a podcast that as president and former president he had met almost everyone. The new pope from Chicago not yet. But he looked forward to meeting him at some point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two months later, Axelrod is sitting across from the pope.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Christopher Hale, who is writing a book about Leo XIV and American politics, says the timing is telling. One cannot be one hundred percent certain whether the meeting is connected to a planned Obama visit. But the circumstances strongly suggest it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Leo XIV was born in Chicago and grew up in Dolton south of the city. He consumes American media extensively, has an iPhone, is not cut off from reality, Hale says. That is the most unusual description of a pope in a long time. Trump has not met Leo XIV to this day. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker was at the Vatican in November. Several mayors from Illinois have visited the pope. The sitting American president has not. Insiders say the pope knows exactly how political winds are blowing and how meetings are perceived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, it became known that a meeting at the Pentagon between representatives of the Trump administration and the Vatican\u2019s highest ranking American diplomat was far harsher than publicly portrayed. A Vatican source described the conversation as extremely uncomfortable and confrontational. Details about the content remained unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his Easter message, Leo XIV had called for seeking peace and rejecting war - especially a war that many consider unjust, that continues to escalate and solves nothing. Trump has not responded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Obama Presidential Center on the South Side of Chicago will open in two months. The Vatican has said Leo XIV will not travel to the United States in 2026 because it is an election year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether the pope from Chicago meets his neighbor Obama before he meets Trump is not being asked out loud right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n