With the fanfare of trumpets and a chorus of amens, President Obama welcomed Pope Francis to the White House on Wednesday as the leaders of the world's most powerful nation and the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics declared common cause in tackling global poverty, armed conflict and environmental degradation.
During his earlier speech at the White House, the pope waded into two of America's most highly charged political debates, praising the United States as a nation of immigrants and offering a strikingly forceful and explicit endorsement of Mr. Obama's regulatory program to fight climate change.
By contrast, he skirted lightly past disagreements over moral issues like abortion and same-sex marriage as well as the excesses of capitalism.
In welcoming the pope for his first trip to the United States, Mr. Obama thanked him for his help in facilitating the restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba and hailed him for speaking out for the world's most impoverished.