This meeting was inevitable
The Pope and President Obama will meet in Rome, after all.
Pope Benedict XVI will welcome U.S. President Barack Obama to the Vatican July 10 for an audience scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.
Obama will visit Italy July 8-10 to participate in the Group of Eight summit, a meeting of leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations. The meeting will be held in L’Aquila, site of a devastating earthquake in April.
After the G-8 summit, the president and his wife, Michelle, are scheduled to fly to Ghana, arriving late July 10.
Although Pope Benedict usually meets heads of state and government in the morning, the Vatican agreed to host Obama’s first visit to the papal palace the evening before he flies to Africa.
It is not clear whether Miguel Diaz, a theology professor tapped by Obama to be the new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, will be present for the meeting.
Pro-lifers were dismayed at the pick as Diaz numbered among a group of dissident Catholics, including Pepperdine law professor Doug Kmiec, who signed a letter supporting Obama’s nomination of the deeply pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services.Â
Even with the pick for ambassador to the Vatican, Obama cannot add a pro-life voice to his administration.
The buzz around Vatican watchers in the media was that no ambassador would be in place in time to pave the way for a meeting before the pope left Rome for the summer. But you just knew that it would happen.
This will be interesting. If anyone on the world stage can outweight Obama’s skills of oratory with the goods (the truth, the reason, the finesse)Â to back up the words, it’s Benedict.
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Compare and contrast B16’s and Obama’s speeches to the Muslim community. I believe they are very similar in tone and content. While the Pope speaks clerics, intellectuals and theologians, Obama speaks to the man on the street. They are both trying to acheive the same ends in different ways from both ends of the spectrum. They should have a lot to speak about.
Not only did Diaz and Kmiec support Sibelius, but I think Sam Brownback did as well (Kasas City Star, March 3, 2009). Does that strip Brownback of his pro-life credentials?
I agree, this could/should be an interesting meeting. Hopefully Pope Benedict and President Obama will have the opportunity to have a real conversation, not just a ceremonial greeting/photo op. If anyone can get the president to drop his modus operandi of telling his immediate audience whatever they want to hear and engage in real debate on the issues facing the world today…both the ones they agree on and the ones they disagree on…, it’s Pope Benedict. Then, IF Obama actually listens, yes I believe they could work together to achieve some common good. That’s a big IF though.
Re: Senator Brownback voting to confirm Gov. Sebelius at HHS it’s no secret in Kanas that Brownback plans to run for governor in 2010 and by sending Sebelius to Washington he removes a formidable potential democratic candidate for his vacant senate seat. Not that his vote would have made any difference, she was confirmed 65-31. So he not only supported her for political reasons, he ‘sold out cheap.’ Whatever “pro-life credentials” he had faded quickly behind an inconvenience that impacted his own life – which makes him pro-choice.