RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Thursday, February 13th. According to the former president’s staff, the meeting lasted approximately one hour. “Meeting with Pope Francis to talk about a more fair and fraternal world,” Lula wrote on social media.
The Lula Institute published photos of the meeting on its Twitter account and mentioned its intention to “discuss and design solutions to the injustices and inequalities in the world”. Lula also used his Twitter to publish the photos.
The ex-president arrived at the Vatican at approximately 3:30 PM local time aboard a vehicle with tinted glass windows. The Holy See said it would not release an official statement due to the meeting’s private nature.
Lula requested the Federal District Court to postpone a deposition he was to give in connection with Operation Zelotes – initially scheduled for Tuesday, February 11th.
Judge Ricardo Augusto Soares Leite authorized it and rescheduled it to February 19th. Lula will return to Brazil on Saturday, February 15th.
The meeting was mediated by the newly elected president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, who met the Pope in late January and talked for almost an hour.
Hunger reduction
On Wednesday, February 12th, Workers’ Party (PT) sources said that Lula would suggest talks related to issues such as reducing hunger and inequality.
It was expected that they would also discuss Lula’s criminal convictions, lawfare (using lawsuits to obtain political ends) and the Amazon.
The Amazon biome has been a recurring theme within the Catholic Church and was the central theme of the Amazon Synod, held last October.
The Amazon Synod was announced in 2017 by Francis. The meeting served as a tool for him to consult and observe debates on a topic in order to prepare guidelines for the clergy.
Last April, a few days before completing a year of imprisonment in the Federal Police headquarters in Curitiba, Lula wrote a letter to Pope Francis in which he claimed to be “fighting for his innocence”.
“I am imprisoned because the powerful want to destroy the entire network of protection and care that we have built for the excluded,” Lula wrote on April 5th, 2019, ending his text with “I would like to have your support and friendship, pray for me”.
Approximately a month later, Francis replied to the former president’s letter. In it, he quoted a speech he gave on the first day of that year, in which he declared that politics must be a tool to “create conditions for a dignified and equitable future”.