For the president, who has courted religious voters back home and fared well among Catholics — outrunning an opponent who is Catholic, Sen. John Kerry, in 2004 — this was his first meeting with Benedict XVI but his fourth with a pope. Bush last met with Pope John Paul II in 2004, during the re-election campaign.

"I'll give you an impression," Bush said at his news conference. "I was talking to a very smart, loving man.... After 6 1/2 years of being the president, I've been to some unusual places ... I was in awe."

In a library adorned with a painting of the Virgin Mary by Antoniazzo Romano and a large crucifix sculptured by Giotto, the pope and president exchanged gifts.

The pontiff gave the president a 17th-century lithograph of St. Peter's Basilica and a gold Vatican medallion. The president gave the pope a white walking stick crafted by a former homeless man, Dallas artist Roosevelt Wilkerson, a piece of native Texas wood inscribed with the Ten Commandments.

With busloads of carabinieri roaming the streets of Rome, dozens of police trucks and buses surrounded the Colosseum, downtown Piazza Venezia and other historic locations.

While Italy is withdrawing its troops from Iraq, it still is supporting a NATO mission in Afghanistan. Bush, thanking allies such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Albania and Bulgaria during a weeklong tour promoting a freedom agenda, thanked the government here. And he promoted his "compassion agenda" as well, addressing a religious organization that sponsors treatment for people infected with HIV in Africa.

"I've got a very strong AIDS initiative," said Bush, who has proposed to double the current U.S. commitment for fighting AIDS in Africa to $30 billion over the next five years and pledged to the pope that he will press hard for Congress to approve that commitment.