Pope met Italian Prime Minister

L'Osservatore Romano reported this morning that Pope Francis met late yesterday afternoon with Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti in the Domus Sanctae Martae.  The meeting lasted 20 minutes.  The Senator was  accompanied  by his wife Elsa.

According to the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr Federico Lombardy, their conversation was very cordial and regarded the situation in Italy, European integration with all of its prospects and migrations.  Among other things, Senator Monti told the Pope that his own father had been born in Argentina in 1900 to Italian immigrants.

The Pope gave the Senator a book with the first discourses of his pontificate, a set of Vatican coins and a rosary. For his part, Monti offered the Pope a triptych  of pens and his book on democracy in Europe.