Word: pope
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George W. Bush likes to say he's sprinting to the finish, and this week he certainly looks like it. At the White House today he laid on a full welcome for Pope Benedict XVI, complete with concussive 21-gun salute, multiple fanfares and Kathleen Battle leading the crowd in "Happy Birthday" in honor of the Pontiff's 81st. Later in the day he made a speech on climate change. On Thursday he sees the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and on Friday the South Korean Prime Minister arrives for a visit to Camp David. Bush then flies...
Bush played the head-of-state role to the hilt as he basked in the Pope's aura Wednesday, telling the crowd of some 13,500 on the South Lawn that he and Laura were privileged to welcome him to the White House and that the world needed his messages of morality and freedom. The theatrics continued with a fife and drum band and a chorus singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic." But by the time Bush held a dinner in Benedict's honor Wednesday night, with the Pope not attending (the Pontiff does not attend dinners given...
...Dear Brother Bishops," began Pope Benedict XVI in his 55-minute wide-ranging speech and commentary Wednesday following a prayer service to American bishops at the capital's National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Of course, the Bishop of Rome is very much the first among equals in this ecclesiastical fraternity, the boss from Rome paying a visit to one of his the key affiliates. Indeed, one should look at this speech much as if Benedict were a CEO making a major address to upper management, his words as a kind of spiritual "action plan." As always, improving the organization...
However, the Pope also made a point of placing the response to the scandal in "a wider context of sexual mores," citing pornography and the decline of traditional family models. "What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" It remains to be seen which Catholics will find most meaningful: Benedict's groundbreaking but guarded admission or his contextualization of abuse in what he sees as a general U.S. trend toward loose, if legal sexual practices...
...many years and more frequently in the past month, Benedict has been lauding America's vigorous piety, which he has said is partially a result of the First Amendment's leveling the religious playing field and ensuring competitive vigor by forbidding the government to pick an "established" church. The Pope has called it a "positive secularism," in contrast to what he considers outright government hostility to religion in Europe. He expressed this admiration to President Bush this morning. But in front of his bishops, for the first time, Benedict gave vent to an idea that he has usually presented only...