Obama meets the pope

VATICAN CITY, July 10 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican Friday and received a document outlining the Church's opposition to abortion.

The Pope's private secretary Father George Gaenswein said the U.S. president was given the pamphlet to "help him better understand the position of the Catholic Church," the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi confirmed that the pope had stressed the need to defend life at all stages and the right to conscientious objection in his meeting with the U.S. president.

The two leaders talked for 40 minutes in the pope's private study.

Following the session, the pope was introduced to First Lady Michelle Obama and the couple's two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Obama gave the pope a liturgical stole that was draped on the remains of John Nepomucene Neumann at the national shrine dedicated to him in Philadelphia.

The Bohemian-born Neumann was proclaimed a saint in 1977.