Milei, Bezos, Zelensky … the Pope’s big meetings in 2024

As 2024 comes to a close, we offer you various highlights of the year. Here are some of the most important meetings the Holy Father had with political, cultural, and financial leaders.

Argentina's President Javier Milei came to power in December 2023. Shortly after, on February 12, he was received by Pope Francis at the Vatican. He had made highly critical — and even insulting — remarks about the Pontiff during the presidential campaign. However, the head of state had since expressed his regret for certain comments and initiated a rapprochement with the Holy See.

In the end, the visit took place in a warm atmosphere, with the two men exchanging hugs and jokes. The president repeatedly tried to convince the Pope to come to Argentina, where he has not returned since his election in 2013. Despite a second meeting between the two men during the G7 in June, the Pontiff has said he is not sure he will be able to make the trip in the next few years.

Pope Francis addressed a somewhat unusual audience in the Vatican's Sala Clementina on June 14. Addressing over a hundred comedians from around the world, he encouraged them to continue “making God smile” by bringing joy to people's hearts. Among the guests were American stars Chris Rock, Stephen Colbert, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jimmy Fallon.

Another “celebrity” received by the Pope this year was the famous composer Hans Zimmer, on December 7. The Pontiff thanked the creator of the soundtracks to Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator, The Lion King, and Dune for agreeing to take part in the concert for the poor organized by the Vatican in the run-up to Christmas. 

Invited by Italian President Giorgia Meloni, Pope Francis took part in the G7 meeting held in Puglia. He had the opportunity to address the heads of state of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Canada, Japan, Germany, and Italy, as well as India and Argentina, on the challenges of artificial intelligence.

“Faced with the marvels of machines, which seem to know how to choose independently, we should be very clear that decision-making, even when we are confronted with its sometimes dramatic and urgent aspects, must always be left to the human person,” he said in his address.

He was also able to speak privately with some of them, including France's Emmanuel Macron. The two men met again on December 15, during Pope Francis' trip to Ajaccio, for a 45-minute meeting. This year, the Pope also met another G7 member, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who came to the Vatican for the first time.

On August 15, Pope Francis welcomed Jeff Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sanchez to the Vatican. Their meeting focused on environmental action, with the world's 3rd richest man presenting the Pontiff his Bezos Earth Fund project, a $10 billion fund to finance projects to protect the planet. During the meeting, the Pontiff is said to have extolled the importance of culture and literature in “staying in touch with the human soul.” In 2022, the businessman had already visited the Vatican to receive the Galileo Prophets of Philanthropy Award.

During his pontificate, Pope Francis has received many other personalities from the world of technology: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Elon Musk (X, Tesla), Tim Cook (Apple), and Eric Schmidt (Google). 

During his complex trip to Belgium, Pope Francis was questioned by the Belgian Prime Minister and the King of Belgium about the Church's responsibility to repair the “irreparable” abuse committed by members of the clergy. That same evening, the Pope met with 17 victims for a meeting that lasted two hours.

“I spoke to the Pope as if he were my abuser,” Anne-Sophie, 44, who was abused by a priest when she was 10 and 11, told I.MEDIA. “He couldn't take it anymore, but he kept listening to me,” she adds, speaking of a deeply moving encounter. Other victims remain more skeptical. “The fact that he said to us: 'I'm ashamed, I ask for forgiveness, my heart bleeds...' I don't give a damn!” reported Jean-Marc Turine, for example. He had been abused by four Jesuits from 1959 onward, and left the Church. 

“The issue of the return of our fellow citizens in captivity was at the heart of my meeting with Pope Francis,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a tweet after his audience with the pontiff. This was the sixth meeting since 2020 between the two men, whose relations have sometimes seemed distant following the Russian offensive launched in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

After a meeting in May 2023, the Ukrainian president rejected the idea of direct mediation by the Holy See, insisting that a peace plan had to come from the Ukrainians themselves. This year, Volodymyr Zelensky especially praised the humanitarian diplomacy deployed by the Pope and Cardinal Mario Zuppi. “We are counting on the Holy See's help to bring back Ukrainians who have been taken prisoner by Russia,” he said in his tweet. The two men also crossed paths at the G7 summit.

Helpless to stop the war in Gaza, Pope Francis has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages in 2024. With some 60 Israelis still in Gaza, Pope Francis received at the Vatican a group of 16 former hostages and relatives of hostages kidnapped during the attack on October 7, 2023. The initiative was welcomed by Israeli diplomats, who have at times been highly critical of the Vatican.

A few weeks later, Pope Francis held talks with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, lasting around 30 minutes. During the talks, the Holy See reiterated its traditional positions: condemnation of all forms of terrorism, a two-state solution, and special status for the city of Jerusalem, which must be “a place of encounter and friendship between the three great monotheistic religions.”