God love ya': Warm relationship between the world's most powerful Catholics on display as Biden and Pope Francis meet

Rome (CNN)The world's most powerful Catholics -- President Joe Biden and Pope Francis -- held 90 minutes of talks Friday in a session that blended the official and personal sides of the most devout US leader in decades.

After, Biden said Francis had told him he was pleased he was a "good Catholic," and that he should continue receiving communion, despite opposition from some conservative American bishops over his support for abortion.

Even during the most formal of diplomatic occasions, Biden demonstrated an easy familiarity with a pope he has now met four times.

"God love ya," he declared as they walked side-by-side through the papal offices, a familiar Biden-ism that was perhaps never more true.

The meeting stretched twice as long as the one Biden held with Pope John Paul II as a young senator. While the White House said afterward that topics like climate change and Covid-19 arose, Biden told reporters he discussed "a lot of personal things" with the pontiff.

The lengthy meeting, he said, was "wonderful."

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It was a signal of just how much weight Biden had placed in his first audience with Francis as president. Biden, alongside first lady Jill Biden, returned to the Vatican to meet a Pope who has provided both familial comfort and ideological inspiration to a President whose faith has long underpinned his public and private lives.

In extraordinary footage from inside, a talkative Biden engaged in a warm chat with Francis as they exchanged gifts and introduced each others' delegations. At one point, Biden presented Francis a special coin with a deep personal significance: it bore the insignia of the 261st Signal Brigade, the Delaware National Guard unit in which his late son Beau served as a captain.

"I know my son would want me to give it to you," Biden said. In 2015, the Pope privately counseled Biden and members of his family in the months following Beau Biden's death.

Biden explained the coins are given to "warriors and leaders," and called Francis "the most significant warrior for peace I've ever met."

Later, the two men -- both of whom ascended to their powerful positions relatively late in life -- laughed over a philosophy of aging Biden attributed to the baseball player Satchel Paige.

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" Biden asked, before giving his answer: "You're 65," he said. "I'm 60."

Police officers stand by as the motorcade of President Joe Biden arrives across the Via della Conciliazione in Rome leading to the Vatican on Friday, October 29, 2021.

A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said papal officials were struck by the length of the meeting. The two discussed climate change, Covid-19 and migration, the official said.

"The cardinals who were tending to the rest of us were repeatedly exclaiming every eight to 10 minutes or so, after 30, that this was highly unusual and they've never seen things go that long. So clearly, the two men had a lot to talk about," the official said.

"I think the word personal is really important in this regard. This was a policy meeting. It was also a personal meeting," the official added. "And to understand how the two of them spent those 90 minutes, you have to understand both aspects of those. I'm obviously not in a position to comment on the personal piece of it, but it was certainly an important part of his experience in that meeting with Pope Francis."

Despite footage of an outdoor arrival, Biden's visit was clouded somewhat by severe restrictions on press coverage; independent journalists were not allowed to see the two men meeting at all, and no live pictures of the Pope greeting Biden were transmitted.

Biden was the 14th US president to meet with a pope at the Vatican. President Woodrow Wilson was the first to do so in 1919.