“The pope is an Argentinian concerned for his fatherland and for his people. He loves the Argentinians very much.”

Francis has known him since 2006, when as archbishop of Buenos Aires he heard about his work with street children and drug addicts and contacted him.

Francis has shown a great interest in Iraq and its people that have suffered so much since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

He succeeds Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 92, who was dean for almost 15 years.

Mr. Pence told Francis “you made me a hero” back home by granting him the private audience.

Bishop Nelson J. Perez becomes the third Hispanic archbishop in the United States and the first to serve in this archdiocese.

Francis called on all Christians “to work together to show to the migrants the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.”

Pope Francis firmly condemned “every form of anti-Semitism” on the eve of the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

The Vatican revealed that the pope and president discussed “the good existing bilateral relations” between the Holy See and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and expressed “satisfaction” at the ratification of the framework agreement between the two countries on matters of mutual interest.

The pope has named Francesca Di Giovanni, an Italian lay woman, to be the second undersecretary of the secretariat’s Section for the Relations with States.