The Portuguese government granted civil servants and schools an extra day off last week to celebrate the Pope's visit.
Journalist, João Miguel Tavares, did not have a place to keep his children while he was at work and his wife, who is a doctor, was on call at work.
According to The Times, Travares wrote an open letter to Prime Minister António Costa.
It read: "Taking into consideration the sympathy with which Your Excellency granted public officials a day off (when the Pope arrives) so they could appreciate the circulation of the Papamobile on the roads of Portugal, I am presented with a problem.
"My children attend public schools. I will have to work while my children will not take classes."
He then challenged the nation's leader to either speedily give him a job as a civil servant or in his office.
"But the fastest solution seems to me is while I work, you stay with my kids, who are well-educated boys and girls, able to sit at the table, though not very correctly, and use cutlery."
The Times said Tavares, 43, received a message from the prime minister accepting the challenge to "look after his two daughters and two sons, aged between four and 13."
The newspaper reported he "ended up watching children's television with Mr Tavares's offspring in the São Bento Palace, his official residence, before giving them a tour and treating them to lunch."
The leader handed back the children to their father once he was due to meet with the Pope.
