Word: pope
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When President Barack Obama sat down in that same spot on Friday, July 10, for his first papal meeting, his posture was altogether different. Leaning forward from the front edge of the chair, his shoulders slightly hunched, his crossed hands resting softly on the edge of the Pope's desk, the leader of the free world looked more like a schoolboy who'd arrived to humbly plead his case to the principal. "You must be used to getting your picture taken," Obama commented to the Pope as a scrum of photographers clicked away, then continued, "I'm still getting used...
...hard policy. To a large degree, the deck has flipped from the Bush era: the Obama Administration's focus on dialogue-centric, multilateral foreign policy is to the Vatican's liking, while its support of abortion rights and stem-cell research are a deep worry after the Pope's having had an ally on bioethics in the White House for eight years...
...during the oddly scheduled Friday afternoon meeting, crammed between the end of the Group of 8 meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, and Obama's departure for Ghana, the Pope had no intention of papering over differences on what the Vatican calls "life" issues, such as abortion and euthanasia. While reporters and photographers waited in a narrow Vatican corridor outside the library during the private audience, the Pope's personal secretary, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, disclosed that there was one item added to the list of gifts for Obama: "Dignitas Personae" ("The Dignity of a Person"), a Vatican document released in December...
...When the Pope presented him with the light green softcover document after their 35-minute closed-door meeting, Obama quickly responded, "Yes, this is what we had talked about." And like that humble schoolboy, the President assured the Pope he would read it on the flight to Ghana...
Patrick Whelan, head of the Catholic Democrats organization in Boston, believes that the Pope's particular emphasis on bioethics may have been due to the recent uproar in the U.S. Catholic Church over the President's invitation to give the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. Some Catholic bishops opposed to the invitation because of Obama's stance on abortion and other ethical issues had hoped in vain that the Vatican would join the fray. "There was a feeling that [the Pope] didn't back them up over Notre Dame," said Whelan. "He wanted to show them that...