Presidents and Popes
From USA Today: (and it quotes my cousin!!)
Bush awarded Pope John Paul II the Medal of Freedom. The president will meet Pope Benedict XVI for the first time Saturday.
Benedict, Bush both benefit from meeting
USA TODAY/GALLUP POLL
How much attention should President Bush pay to Pope Benedict XVI’s ideas and pronouncements about policy?
Moderate amount: 46%
Not much: 21%
A great deal: 18%
None at all: 11%
No opinion: 4%
Source: USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken June 1-3 of 496 adults nationwide. Margin of error +/-5 percentage points.
By David Jackson, USA TODAY
ROSTOCK, Germany — When Al Smith lost the 1928 presidential race, he was attacked for being Roman Catholic and therefore too close to the pope.
Today, U.S. presidents and the leader of the Catholic Church enjoy a working relationship that has spanned decades.President Bush had his fourth papal audience on Saturday and his first with Pope Benedict XVI. Bush will tie a meeting record set by presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, who both met four times with Pope John Paul II.
Bush told a group of European journalists last week that he was looking forward to meeting with Benedict, calling him a “a good thinker and a smart man. I’ll be in a listening mode.
“Sometimes I’m not poetic enough to describe what it’s like to be in the presence of the Holy Father,” Bush said. “It is a moving experience.”
Americans generally like the idea of presidents conferring with popes. About seven in 10 say Bush should pay more attention or the same amount to Benedict as he does to other world leaders, according to a recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. Only 27% say the pope should receive less attention.
While American political history includes a thread of anti-Catholicism, church observers and political analysts say the meetings between the president and the pontiff offer something for both.
The president represents “the one great superpower and all that signifies,” said Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. “The pope speaks from a worldwide perspective of faith, spirituality and conscience.”
Matthew Wilson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said “a sense of approval from the Vatican” can only help a president on the international stage. Closer to home, he said, the White House “has seen good relations with the Vatican as part of (its) domestic effort to woo Catholic voters, particularly conservative Catholic voters.”
Bush won 52% of the Catholic vote in 2004, according to media exit polls, and beat Sen. John Kerry, who is Catholic.
Bush’s meeting with Benedict touched on the Iraq war, which the Vatican has long opposed. John Paul dispatched a cardinal to the White House in 2003 to plead against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and echoed his opposition to the war when he met with Bush in 2004. John Paul also opposed the Persian Gulf War.
The president’s other meetings with John Paul touched on politically sensitive issues such as embryonic stem cell research and charges of clergy sex abuse.
In his Easter message this year, Benedict bemoaned that “nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees.”
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, D.C., said, “War and peace are always on the mind of the Holy Father.”
Benedict, who became pope in April 2005, has had his share of controversy. His suggestion of a link between violence and Islam in September 2006 sparked a protest throughout the Muslim world, though Benedict sought to clarify his remarks on a visit to Turkey a few months later.
And while traveling to Brazil earlier this year, Benedict said politicians risked excommunication if they supported abortion laws.
The Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, said the meeting between Bush and the pontiff was a “photo op.” Still, he said, it “allows for an exchange of information and views” on a wide range of issues.
“The Vatican has been called one of the great listening posts of diplomacy,” Reese said. “Let’s hope the administration listens.”
Some historical facts about presidents and popes, according to the Rev. James Garneau, who lectured on the topic at Catholic University:
•Woodrow Wilson was the first president to meet with a pope, Benedict XV in 1919. A president did not have a papal audience again until 1959, when John XXIII received Dwight Eisenhower. That began a tradition that has included every president since.
•John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic elected to the White House, ignored anti-Catholic sentiment to visit Pope Paul VI in 1963. They discussed the civil rights movement.
•Reagan, who nodded off during his first meeting with John Paul II, formed an anti-communist pact with the pontiff whose native Poland was temporarily behind the Iron Curtain.
July 23, 2001 at Castel Gandolfo, the papal retreat Stem cell research The pope asked Bush not to support federal funding of research on embryonic stem cells. The meeting occurred months before Bush approved limited federal support of such research using existing stem cell lines. Bush vowed Thursday he’ll veto a research bill passed by Congress because it would destroy human embryos. He vetoed the measure once before, in 2006. “Experience is already showing how a tragic coarsening of conscience accompanies the assault on innocent human life in the womb.” —Pope John Paul II One example he cited: “Proposals for the creation for research purposes of human embryos, destined to destruction in the process.”
May 28, 2002 at the Vatican Clergy sexual abuse of children Bush was in Rome for a NATO conference. At the time, several priests in the USA were under investigation for molesting children. Church leaders were accused of covering up the problem. Bush and the pope met privately, and there were no statements afterward — the only time that happened in their encounters. “I will tell him that I am concerned about the Catholic Church in America. I am concerned about its standing, and I say that because the Catholic Church is an incredibly important institution in our country.” —President Bush, before the meeting
June 4, 2004 at the Vatican The Iraq war On his way to a 60th anniversary commemoration of the Normandy landings, Bush visited the pope to give him a U.S. Medal of Freedom. The pope and the Vatican were outspoken against the war in Iraq and violence in the Middle East. Later that year, Bush won a second term, even though the Iraq war brought down his approval ratings. “Mr. President, your visit to Rome takes place at a moment of great concern for the continuing situation of grave unrest in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in the Holy Land. You are very familiar with the unequivocal position of the Holy See in this regard.” —Pope John Paul II
