Posted on 07/10/2009 10:45:25 AM PDT by Steelfish
July 10, 2009
Obama meets Pope for talk on abortions and stem cell research
Richard Owen, Rome
Touched by the hand of God ... President Obama meets the Pope for first time
President Obama met the Pope for the first time today in a groundbreaking encounter which should help repair the US leader’s relations with America’s Catholic hierarchy.
During a private 35-minute meeting, the President told Pope Benedict XVI that he would try to limit the number of abortions in the United States. President Obama supports the right of women to have abortions, but has says the procedure should be rare.
Diplomats said the meeting would help Mr Obama counteract the hostility of conservative American Catholic bishops who vehemently oppose his lifting of President Bush's ban on government funding for stem cell research, and for group’s involved with abortion.
Among the gifts the Pope gave the President was a Catholic treatise titled Dignitas Personae, which lists medical techniques opposed by the Roman Catholic Church such as the therapeutic use of stem cells and the use of the morning-after contraceptive pill.
RELATED LINKS Reform to hand Archbishop huge power MULTIMEDIA Ruth Gledhill's Articles of Faith President Obama, who was later leaving for Ghana, said: “That’s what we discussed earlier” and then quipped, “I’ll have some reading to do on the flight".
Sources said the Pope and Mr Obama had found common ground on poverty, peace in the Middle East and the need to reach out to the Muslim world.
Mr Obama gave the Pope an ivory stole with gold crimson and blue trim once draped around the enshrined body of St John Neumann in Philadelphia, America's first saint.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
"Born in what is now the Czech Republic, Neumann emigrated to the United States and served as bishop of Philadelphia from 1852 until his death in 1860. He was canonised in 1977. The stole was removed two years ago when the body was re-dressed, US officials said.
Mr Obama's Muslim father enrolled him in a Catholic school as a child in Indonesia. He is now a Protestant who says he is taking his time deciding which church to join."
"At the end of the encounter, held behind closed doors, Mr Obama's wife Michelle, dressed in black with a black mantilla veil on her head, was also presented to the pontiff. Earlier, Mrs Obama had taken their daughters Malia and Sasha on a tour of St Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel."
This should show just what kind of a salesman he really is.
Fatuous reporter. “Conservative” bishops? Call them what they are: Catholic bishops.
The goal of the Church is not merely to “reduce” the number of abortions.
It is offensive to anyone with any sense of justice that the law DISCRIMINATES.
Would Obama be happy if the law PERMITTED slavery, but a President said he would take steps to reduce the number of slaves—while insisting that ownership of slaves must remain legal.
Baloney.
“a groundbreaking encounter which should help repair the US leader’s relations with America’s Catholic hierarchy.”
Things are just fine, the Vatican doesn’t answer to the US government. Zero should realize that a 2000 year old bastion of Christianity does not kowtow to a tinpot community organizer. If that is what it would take to ‘repair relations’ then let there be a rupture.
If Obama could get away with it, he would hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony with cake & ice cream for every new abortion clinic opened.
Great post and super analysis.
There is little point in trying to make Satan act less like Satan.
How on earth would Obama or the United States have this? Wouldn't this already property of the Church or local diocese?
I believe the Archdiocese gave this to 0 to be an appropriate gift to BXVI
In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia — not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best education possible under the circumstances:
During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school
That must have been some meeting what with both of them holding out their hand waiting for the other person to kiss their ring.
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