Pope Francis has both praised the internet for being a "gift from God" and criticised technology — and particularly social media — for being alienating and a source of "mental pollution".
On Friday, the 79-year-old Argentine pontiff will have a chance to reconcile those two statements as he meets Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, the new holding company for Google, for a brief meeting at the Vatican, the Financial Times reports, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Pope Francis — an ardent critic of unfettered free markets — has rarely granted private audiences to global business leaders since being elected to the helm of the Catholic Church in 2013.
