Pope will receive outgoing US President Biden at Vatican Jan. 10

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis will meet with outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden at the Vatican Jan. 10 to discuss efforts to promote peace worldwide, the White House's press secretary said.

The two leaders also spoke by telephone Dec. 19 during which the 82-year-old president thanked the pope "for his continued advocacy to alleviate global suffering, including his work to advance human rights and protect religious freedoms," the White House said in a written statement the same day.

The president spoke with the pope, who turned 88 Dec. 17, "to discuss efforts to advance peace around the world during the holiday season," the statement said.

"President Biden also graciously accepted His Holiness Pope Francis' invitation to visit the Vatican next month," it added.

That meeting will happen January 10, said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, in a separate statement Dec. 19. The president will "have an audience with the pope and discuss efforts to advance peace around the world."

Biden will travel to Rome Jan. 9-12 to meet separately with the pope, Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, she said.

He will meet with Italy's leaders "to highlight the strength of the U.S.-Italy relationship, thank Prime Minister Meloni for her strong leadership of the G7 over the past year, and discuss important challenges facing the world," Jean-Pierre said.

Vatican News also reported the White House statement about the pope's phone call with Biden.

While it did not provide additional details, the Vatican News report did give a lengthy overview of Pope Francis' recent appeal, in light of the coming Holy Year, for the global abolition of the death penalty, which he said is "a provision at odds with Christian faith and one that eliminates all hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation," and his recent call for prayers "for the detainees in the United States who are on death row."

"Let us pray for their sentence to be commuted, changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death," Pope Francis had said after praying the Angelus Dec. 8.

Biden, a Catholic, had promised in 2020 to end the federal death penalty during his administration; his term ends January 20.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, about 60 members of Congress and others have urged the president to commute the existing sentences of the men on federal death row, especially since President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to use and expand the federal death penalty when he takes office.

The last time Pope Francis met with Biden was at the Group of Seven summit in Puglia, Italy, June 14, where they had a brief private bilateral meeting. The last time the two met at the Vatican was Oct. 29, 2021, ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

Biden has said he will continue working after his term ends on domestic and foreign policy matters. This will include, he has said, at the University of Delaware's Biden Institute in Newark and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C.