Bush Calls Pope John Paul II a 'Hero for the Ages'
Pope John Paul II
By Scott Stearns - Washington
09 April 2005
President Bush is using his weekly radio address to pay tribute to Pope John Paul II, who was buried at the Vatican Friday. The president says the funeral ceremonies were a powerful and moving reminder of the profound impact the pope had on the world.
During nearly three decades, Mr. Bush says, Pope John Paul brought the message of hope and love and freedom to the far corners of the Earth.
"Many in the West underestimated the pope's influence," he said. "But those behind the Iron Curtain knew better, and, ultimately, even the Berlin Wall could not withstand the gale force of this Polish pope."
Mr. Bush was the first sitting American president to attend a papal funeral. He lead a delegation that included his father - former President George Herbert Walker Bush - former President Bill Clinton, First Lady Laura Bush, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In his weekly radio address, President Bush says the call to freedom that defined John Paul's papacy was forged in the experiences of the pope's own life, studying for the seminary during the Nazi occupation of Poland and later contributing to the fall of communism by spreading a moral truth that, Mr. Bush says, was a force greater than armies or secret police.
The president says the pope held a special affection for America and the self-evident truths of human dignity enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
"It is these timeless truths about man, enshrined in our founding, the pope said, that have led freedom-loving people around the world to look to America with hope and respect," he said. "And, he challenged America always to live up to its lofty calling. The pope taught us that the foundation for human freedom is a universal respect for human dignity."
By his own example, in the face of illness and suffering, President Bush says, the pope showed all humanity the path to a culture of life, where the dignity of every human person is respected.
While the president and pope differed over the war in Iraq and the death penalty, they were allies on more conservative social issues, including opposition to abortion and gay marriage.
Iran's President Mohammad Khatami, center, Israeli President Moshe Katzav, top left, King Abdullah of Jordan, bottom left back to camera, and Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, top right, stand in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Friday April 8, 2005, prior to a funeral mass for Pope John Paul II. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Khatami Denies Shaking Hands With Katsav
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami strongly denied shaking hands and chatting with Israeli President Moshe Katsav at Pope John Paul II's funeral, state-run media reported Saturday.
Following the pope's funeral on Friday, Katsav said he shook hands and chatted briefly with Khatami and the leader of another archenemy of Israel, Bashar Assad of Syria. Syria on Friday confirmed the handshake between Assad and Katsav but played down its political significance.
But after returning to Iran, Khatami denied shaking Katsav's hand.
"These allegations are false like other allegations made by Israeli media and I have not had any meeting with any one from the Zionist regime," the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Khatami as saying.
Khatami was cited as saying his country "morally and logically" does not recognize Israel but will not interfere in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, meanwhile, said he doubted the handshake could represent a diplomatic breakthrough.
"I hope that it can be a new beginning, certainly. But frankly I doubt it," Shalom said in an interview with Italian daily La Stampa published Saturday. "Khatami and Assad are two extremists. It could only have happened thanks to the truly magnetic personality of John Paul II."
Israeli media reported Friday that during the Pope's funeral ceremony, Khatami talked briefly with Katzav. Some suggested the exchange was a small breakthrough between the leaders of two nations that have had no relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran toppled the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The Iranian-born Katsav said he and Khatami conversed about Yazd, the region in central Iran where both men were born.
"The two of us were born in the same region in Iran, two years apart," Katsav was quoted as saying.
"The president of Iran extended his hand to me, I shook it and told him in Farsi, 'May peace be upon you.'"
Iran and Israel have been bitter enemies for years — Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that must be wiped from the world map.
Iran is accused of supporting Lebanon's Shiite Muslim militant group, Hezbollah, which fought Israeli soldiers until they withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. Hezbollah continues to launch occasional attacks against Israeli troops in a disputed parcel of land on the southern Lebanese border.
Iran also hosts militant Palestinian groups, including Hamas, and President Bush recently accused Iran of being the "the world's primary state sponsor of terror."
Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, has repeatedly said the destruction of Israel is the only way to solve the problems of the Middle East. But Iran's reformers, including Khatami, avoid using such language.