Bill O’Reilly Meets Pope Francis in Vatican V.I.P. Line

Bill O’Reilly Meets Pope Francis in Vatican V.I.P. Line
By JASON HOROWITZAPRIL 19, 2017
ROME — Bill O’Reilly, the powerful Fox News host forced out of his prime-time position on Wednesday amid a barrage of sexual harassment allegations, spent the morning of his firing
briefly meeting Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square during the pontiff’s weekly general audience, shaking hands with a religious leader he once lectured over immigration.
In remarks that appeared aimed at Donald J. Trump, who had pledged to build a wall at the border with Mexico, Francis said: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be,
and not building bridges, is not Christian." Days later, on his television show, Mr. O’Reilly, who has been a prominent booster of Mr. Trump, said: "The pope.
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, wrote to the Vatican several months ago requesting tickets for Mr. O’Reilly
and his family, according to Joe Zwilling, a spokesman for Cardinal Dolan.
Often, though, the pope is unaware of the people he is meeting there,
and Wednesday’s exchange with Mr. O’Reilly echoed the pope’s 2015 meeting in the United States with Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky who became a conservative hero for defying a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The encounter came hours before 21st Century Fox, the parent company of Fox News, announced
that Mr. O’Reilly had been forced out of his position after dozens of advertisers abandoned his highly rated program and the Murdoch family, which owns 21st Century Fox, began to show signs of eroding support.
Mr. O’Reilly falls on the conservative side of the divide
and in February 2016 lectured Francis over immigration after the pope stepped into the heated American presidential campaign.