Pope Francis: Bernie Sanders accepts invitation to attend the Vatican and says he is a 'big fan' of Pontiff

As he has pointed out several times, if his grass-roots, insurgent campaign is successful, Bernie Sanders would become the US’s first Jewish president.

Yet on Friday, the Vermont senator said he was “big fan” of Pope Frances and revealed that he had accepted an invitation to attend the Vatican, just days before the crucial New York primary.

“I am delighted to have been invited by the Vatican to a meeting on restoring social justice and environmental sustainability to the world economy,” Mr Sanders said in a statement.

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“Pope Francis has made clear that we must overcome ‘the globalisation of indifference’ in order to reduce economic inequalities, stop financial corruption and protect the natural environment. That is our challenge in the United States and in the world.”

Mr Sanders was invited to attend a conference hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences “on social, economic, and environmental issues”. It is not clear whether he will meet Francis at the event.

The Democratic presidential candidate's appearance at the conference will coincide with the 25th anniversary of the “Centesimus Annus,” an encyclical from Pope John Paul II that addresses workers' rights and other economic and social issues that are similar to those Mr Sanders has stressed in his White House bid.

“I am delighted to have been invited by the Vatican to a meeting on restoring social justice and environmental sustainability to the world economy,” Sanders said in the release.

“I was very moved by the invitation, which just was made public today,” he said.

"I am a big, big fan of the pope. Obviously, there are areas where we disagree, on women's rights and gay rights. But he has played an unbelievable role — an unbelievable role - of injecting a moral consequence into the economy.”

Mr Sanders also joked about the pope’s effort to liberalise aspects of the Catholic Church, adding, “you know, people say Bernie Sanders is radical — read what the pope is writing.”

Mr Sanders visit to the Vatican was announced the same day that Pope Francis released a sweeping paper urging Catholic priests around the world to be more accepting of gay men and lesbians, divorced Catholics, and other people living in what the church considers “irregular” situations.

In the letter, the pope urged more common sense and less unthinking following of rules - what he calls “discernment” - and writes, “by thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and growth.”