Pope Francis has called the Internet a "gift from God," but his next high-profile guest at the Vatican might have a more convincing claim on some of the credit.
The pontiff will sit down with Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google parent company Alphabet, for a private 15-minute meeting in the Vatican on Friday, according to a person familiar with the arrangements.
The Guardian first reported on the meeting. Google declined to comment.
The match-up of the two luminaries is unusual for a number of reasons.
SEE ALSO: The Pope Francis guide to practicing capitalism without hating yourself
While Francis has embraced the Internet as a necessary tool to reach his flock, his general attitude towards technology is decidedly mixed. He's tempered his enthusiasm with a warning that too much digital media has the potential to stifle human relationships and dull people's minds.
“True wisdom...is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data, which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution,” he wrote in an encyclical published last year.
Schmidt, meanwhile, is a powerful executive at what is essentially a data accumulation company — one whose founders have floated the idea of installing web-connected chips into people's brains.
Francis — a vocal critic of capitalism and unrestricted free markets — also rarely confers with the world's top business leaders. During his trip to the United States last fall, he passed up Silicon Valley altogether — although he did take some time to meet with some prominent figures on Wall Street.
Schmidt, who is worth an estimated $10.6 billion, helps run one of the world's largest companies — and one that has occasionally butted heads with anti-trust regulators around the world.
Needless to say, there's enough potential conversational fodder there to fill far more than fifteen minutes. Here are some of the biggest questions we have about the IRL hangout.
What's the point?
Now that he's no longer CEO of Google, meetings like this are a big part of Schmidt's job — though this sit-down was said to have been set up in a private capacity.
As the ambassador and public face of Google's brand, he's made a point of visiting prominent world leaders and other influential figures in order to strengthen the company's many important business relationships.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt gestures as he speaks at a Washington Ideas Forum, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010, at the Newseum in Washington.
IMAGE: MANUEL BALCE CENETA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
He regularly tours countries — including such cloistered regimes as North Korea, Cuba and Saudi Arabia — to promote the spread of an open Internet, keeps up appearances in powerful circles and deals with international regulators.
He will reportedly be joined by Google Ideas head Jared Cohen, a former U.S. State Department aide. The meeting also comes on the heels of news that the Mountain View, California-based tech giant hired a former Obama administration advisor to bolster its public policy arm.
Schmidt's own charitable organization, the Schmidt Family Foundation, has championed science and research for environmental causes — something Francis has also strongly supported.
And while Francis might scoff at the Silicon Valley leader's exorbitant riches, building connections with power brokers like Schmidt gives him more means to affect change on issues that he cares about.
What will they talk about?
It's anybody's guess. If there is an agenda for the meeting, it hasn't been released to the public.
There's a chance the meeting may center around efforts to combat climate change — since that seems to be the topic where the two most readily agree.
Schmidt and his wife Wendy have privately backed initiatives towards more renewable energy and a cleaner environment for more than a decade. Through various foundations, she has helped distribute the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth, provided the initial funding for nonprofit news source Climate Central and established a challenge prize for technology that could clean oil from ocean water.
Francis has repeatedly spoken out about the threat of global manmade climate change and pleaded with countries to take steps to curb their air pollution. He has called a clean environment a human right, helping to transform a scientific issue into a moral imperative.
Can't they agree on anything else?
Aside from the environment, the two share a common interest in the developing world. Francis, the first pope to hail from Latin America, has put the needs of the impoverished global masses at the center of his agenda, while Google is banking on expanding the reach of the open Internet to emerging markets.
Only 15 minutes?
It's barely enough time to get through ice breakers. Both men's time is no doubt extremely valuable, but with that short of an appointment window, it hardly even seems worth the trip.
The pair obviously aren't expecting any deep, ruminating meditations on the meaning of life.
Will there be mention of Google's 'unbridled capitalism'?
If there is, it could make for some uncomfortable silences.
The pope has made no secret of his fondness for strict rules when it comes capitalism — the excesses of which he's famously referred to as the "dung of the devil."
Google, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care for them much.
The company has been embroiled in a court battle with European Union regulators for years over whether it played fair in securing the 90% search engine market share it currently enjoys in the continent. There's also been multiple reports that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has considered suing the company for anti-competitive practices on numerous occasions.
When questioned by Bloomberg about Google's tax avoidance structure in 2012, Schmidt cheekily replied: "It's called capitalism."
What does Francis think of technology?
He's certainly no Luddite, but he has some qualms about its potential to do harm.
His concerns aren't much different than, say, your parents sighing about younger generations being glued to their phones — albeit probably worded in more fiery terms.
He worries that too much social media and texting could ruin real human interaction and that the ability to Google anything at any given time could make people dumber as a whole.
In one particularly Dad-like moment, he warned altar workers not to spend too much time "chatting on the Internet or with smartphones, watching TV soap operas and (using) the products of technological progress, which should simplify and improve the quality of life, but distract attention away from what is really important."
On the other hand, he's also proven to be the most tech-savvy pope yet. He's hosted two Google hangouts from the Vatican — on one, he joked about being a technological "dinosaur" — and he regularly tweets to his more than 8 million followers from his @Pontifex account.
http://mashable.com/2016/01/14/questions-google/#tjQ3rdZerkqd
