Mayor Eric Adams will travel to Rome on Thursday to meet with Pope Francis, becoming the latest in a recent succession of New York City mayors to pay respects to the leader of the Catholic Church.
The trip comes as Mr. Adams, a moderate Democrat facing languishing poll numbers and a federal criminal investigation, prepares to run for re-election next year in what is expected to be a contested primary.
The mayor will be accompanied by one of his closest advisers, Frank Carone, a former chief of staff who is now the de facto head of Mr. Adams’s campaign. A spokesman for the mayor had no immediate comment when asked about the trip; roughly an hour later, the mayor’s press office released an advisory that Mr. Adams would be in Rome later this week.
The advisory mentions “travel to the Vatican City,” but did not specify if he would meet with the pope. But three sources familiar with Mr. Adams’s itinerary confirmed that he would see Pope Francis.
A spokesman for the Vatican also had no immediate comment.
Mr. Adams is not Catholic, but has frequently sought to portray himself as a devout politician on a godly mission. At a church service just last week, he described himself as “prayer warrior” who acts as a “vessel that allows God to operate through.”
The mayor, more so than his recent predecessors, has made a point of blending religion into his political message, a direct appeal to a crucial portion of his base of support: churchgoing voters, especially in Black communities.
The meeting between the pope and the mayor will happen on the sidelines of a larger event, the World Meeting on Human Fraternity, a gathering whose goal is to make fraternity “the basis of a new world, of new human relationships, of love on earth.”
The event, which begins May 10, will start with a ceremony at the Sistine Chapel, followed by a dinner in the Vatican Museums’ Braccio Nuovo gallery, which contains works once confiscated by Napoleon.
The gathering will include Nobel Peace Prize laureates, artists, politicians, athletes and children. There will also be round-table discussions on topics as varied as agriculture, sustainable business practices and peace. It was not immediately clear if Mr. Adams would be granted a private audience with the pope.
Growing up in Queens, Mr. Adams attended what he has described as a nondenominational church of the Church of Christ, and he retains an affiliation to the church, his spokesman has said.
The mayor has frequently cast his mayoralty as divinely inspired. He has said he speaks to God frequently, that God prophesied his rise to the mayoralty decades ago, and that he governs in a “godlike” manner. He has argued against the separation of church and state. He has said he talks so often about God because God told him to.
Mr. Adams is not the first New York City mayor to make the pilgrimage to the Vatican. Bill de Blasio, Mr. Adams’s predecessor, made much of his Italian heritage and traveled to a Vatican conference in 2015. He did not have a one-on-one meeting with the pope, but he did meet him later that year, when the pope came to New York City.
Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg, traveled to the Vatican for Pope John Paul II’s funeral in 2005, according to Stu Loeser, his longtime spokesman, and he met with Pope Benedict XVI when he traveled to New York City in 2008.
Mr. Adams also visited Israel last year in another rite of passage for New York City mayors. But trips abroad typically raise questions about whether mayors would do better to pay closer attention to matters at home; indeed, his trip to Italy comes at a time of significant tumult on college campuses in New York City.
“There is a demonic energy that has engulfed our planet,” the mayor said last week, later adding and then repeating, “It’s time to pray.”