ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE -- Pope Francis says he won't try to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to soften his policies on immigration and the environment when they meet at the Vatican this month, but wants instead to find common ground and work for peace.
Francis said proselytizing isn't his style -- in politics or religion.
Speaking to reporters while traveling home Saturday from a trip to Portugal, Francis said he would say what he thinks sincerely to Trump and listen respectfully to what Trump has to say.
"I never make a judgment about a person without hearing him out," the pope said.
Speculation has swirled about what Trump and Francis will discuss during their May 24 audience, given Francis has already said anyone who wants to build walls to keep out migrants is "not Christian."
Trump, who made building a wall along the border with Mexico a signature campaign promise, responded by saying it was "disgraceful" that the pope would question his faith.
Francis said that in talks, he always tries to find "doors that are at least a little bit open" where common ground can be found, particularly in peace-building.
"Peace is artisanal. You do it every day," he said.
Asked specifically if he would try to soften Trump's policies, Francis said: "That is a political calculation that I don't allow myself to make. Also in the religious sphere -- I don't proselytize."
Trump will call on Francis midway through his first foreign trip, after visiting Saudi Arabia and Israel and before attending a NATO summit in Brussels and a G-7 summit in Italy.
Francis departed Portugal on Saturday after adding two Portuguese shepherd children to the roster of Catholic saints, honoring young siblings whose reported visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago turned the Portuguese farm town of Fatima into one of the world's most important Catholic shrines.
Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of Mass marking the centenary of their visions. A half-million people watched in the vast square in front of the shrine's basilica, the Vatican said, citing Portuguese authorities. Many had spent days at Fatima in prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna. They clapped as soon as Francis read the proclamation aloud.
"It is amazing. It's like an answer to prayer, because I felt that always they would be canonized," said Agnes Walsh from Killarney, Ireland. She said she prayed to Francisco Marto for 20 years, hoping her four daughters would meet "nice boys like Francisco."
"The four of them have met boys that are just beautiful. I couldn't ask for better, so he has answered all my prayers," she said.
Francisco and Jacinta, ages 9 and 7, and their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary made the first of a half-dozen appearances to them while they grazed their sheep. They said she confided in them three secrets -- foretelling apocalyptic visions of hell, war, communism and the death of a pope -- and urged them to pray for peace and a conversion from sin.
At the time, Europe was in the throes of World War I, and the Portuguese church was suffering under anti-clerical laws from the republican government that had forced many bishops and priests into exile.
"Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures," Francis said in his homily. "Such a life, frequently proposed and imposed, risks leading to hell."
He urged Catholics to use the example of the Marto siblings and draw strength from God, even when adversity strikes. The children had been threatened by local civil authorities with death by boiling oil if they didn't recant their story. But they held fast and eventually the church recognized the apparitions as authentic in 1930.
"We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God's light and taught to adore him," he said. "That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering."
The Martos are now the youngest-ever saints who didn't die as martyrs.
Before the Mass, Francis prayed at the tombs of each of the Fatima visionaries. The Marto siblings died two years after the visions during Europe's Spanish flu pandemic. Lucia is on track for possible beatification, but her process couldn't start until after her 2005 death.
Information for this article was contributed by Barry Hatton of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/14/2017