"Ya gotta understand Pontiff, were onna Mission from GOD".
Posted on 06/04/2004 4:48:14 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
ROME (AP) -
President Bush got a sharp dose of Europe's opposition to his Iraq policy Friday, quietly in the halls of the Vatican from Pope John Paul II and loudly in the streets of Rome from thousands of demonstrators.
The ailing pontiff complained about recent "deplorable events," an apparent reference to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops. In the absence of a commitment to shared human values, "neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome," he said, struggling to speak.
However, the pope welcomed the recent establishment of an interim government and called for a speedy transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis.
Not far from the Vatican walls, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to demonstrate through central Rome, many with signs demanding Italy withdraw its troops from Iraq. A score of demonstrators hurling stones clashed with police during the march. Others threw firecrackers and set a trash can on fire.
Bush had dinner with a top ally on Iraq, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. On Saturday, the president heads to Paris to meet with one of his sharpest war critics, French President Jacques Chirac.
Despite Berlusconi's backing, and his decision to send 3,000 Italian troops to Iraq, polls show that a majority of Italians oppose the U.S.-led war and occupation of Iraq, a sentiment common throughout western Europe.
Bush is on a three-day trip to Italy and France to help commemorate the June 1944 liberation of Rome and the allied D-Day invasion of Normandy. He was also using the trip - and an international economic summit next week in Sea Island, Ga. - to try to build more support among leading nations for a new U.N. resolution to deal with post-occupation Iraq.
But the announcement in Baghdad that five U.S. soldiers were killed and five wounded on Friday when their vehicles were attacked in east Baghdad served as a reminder that Iraq remained an extremely dangerous place.
Seated next to the pope, Bush promised his nation would work for "human liberty and human dignity," without making any reference to Iraq. He presented the pontiff with the presidential medal of freedom, America's highest civilian award, calling him "a devoted servant of God."
The president and his wife Laura laid a green wreath at the Ardeatine Cave Memorial, where Nazi occupiers massacred 335 Italian citizens in 1944. Bush, alone, approached the wreath, straightened its blue ribbon and bowed his head as a bugler played.
At the Vatican, Bush sat impassively as the 84-year-old pope, seated in front of a microphone, read his statement in English in a voice that was audible, but not easily understood. His hands trembled from Parkinson's disease.
"Mr. President, your visit to Rome takes place at a moment of great concern for the continuing situation of grave unrest in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in the Holy Land," the pope said.
"In the past few weeks, other deplorable events have come to light which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all."
Although the remarks appeared directed at abuses of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, they could also be taken to include other atrocities such as the kidnapping of foreign civilians in Iraq by Islamic militants and the beheading of an American contractor.
The pope did not elaborate. Neither would papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, although he did not dispute characterizations that the comments referred primarily to abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.
The spokesman said that while the pope had reiterated the Vatican's long-standing opposition to the war, he made plain he was ready to move forward.
Later, Navarro-Valls issued a brief statement summing up Bush's visit to the Vatican. "There were some points of agreement, especially regarding the process of normalization of Iraq," he said.
Navarro-Valls also spoke about the U.S. humanitarian role around the world, particularly in Africa, and, as the pope himself had stated, the promotion of moral values in American society.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "We appreciate the Holy Father's words of support for the interim government and for the transfer of sovereignty."
Regarding the pope's apparent reference to Abu Ghraib, McClellan said, "I'm sure the Holy Father is concerned about the abuses. The president is as well. That's why we are acting, taking a systemic look at the prison system and holding those responsible who committed those atrocities."
Friday's was Bush's third meeting with the pope since he became president.
Bush has aggressively courted Roman Catholic voters - a bloc making up about a quarter of the electorate that split evenly between Bush and Democrat Al Gore in 2000.
Thanking Bush for the medal of freedom award, the pontiff said: "God bless America."
--
Yeah well sorry but be quiet to the Pope...what about your pedophilia problem?? Decry that why dont you.
No mention of the Popes denouncement of ABORTION and SAME SEX MARRIAGES in the same speech.
Wonder why?
Interesting editorial commentary inserted into this "news" story... Perhaps the Pope thought the Nick Berg beheading was deplorable? Or the various Jihadi terrorist attacks?
Amazing. It is becoming obvious that even if all goes perfect and a stable and democratic Iraq emerges these idiots will not shut up.
ROME (AP) - President Bush arrived 15 minutes late for his meeting with Pope John Paul II - unusual for a president who makes no secret of his impatience when others keep him waiting.
It was a rare breach of protocol in Vatican City, too, and raised eyebrows in the papal delegation.
"The president is 15 minutes late," John Paul's secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, pointed out to Vatican reporters.
White House aides blamed Bush's tardiness Friday on a longer-than-expected preceding meeting with the Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
---
Protesters in the city were yelling "George Bush, terrorist," yet the president was insulated from the anti-war demonstrations, tucked safely away in plush digs behind high stone walls and razor wire.
During Bush's 36-hour visit to Italy and Vatican City, he was staying at the home of U.S. ambassador to Italy, Melvin Sembler. The manicured grounds feature stucco buildings with red-tiled roofs, small mazes of hedges interspersed with roses and gurgling fountains.
A security perimeter extended several blocks out from the residence, situated on a six-acre plot. The blare of Italian sirens drifted over the walls as faintly as if they were miles away. Noise from outside the compound was practically drowned out by the sounds of birds chirping and breeze rustling through pines.
What was unclear Friday was whether noise from inside the compound is audible from outside the walls. Aides said Sembler has thrown parties virtually every night for the last week.
Sembler also summoned tailors Friday from a well-known suit maker in the heart of Rome, Brioni. They brought dozens of suits for the men in Bush's entourage to try on. There was no immediate word on whether Bush modeled suits, too.
---
Bush also managed to avoid the tens of thousands of protesters in his lengthy travels throughout Rome and the Vatican.
In fact, the famously expressive Italians seemed downright nonplussed by the presidential motorcade barreling through their cities throughout the early part of the day.
The heavy police presence did not keep ordinary Italians from getting close to the line of vehicles that trailed the presidential limousine.
As the cars and trucks sped through curving, narrow streets, a woman casually stepped in front of a minibus mid-motorcade. Scooters and the occasional wayward car drifted into the motorcade briefly, then eased back out to let it pass.
---
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi offered his verdict on the demonstrations in Rome, declaring them "a flop." Berlusconi made the comment to reporters as President Bush and the first lady climbed out of their limousine for dinner with the prime minister.
---
Two days before commemorating the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy, Bush quietly paid tribute to Italian victims of World War II.
Bush visited Fosse Ardeatine, where on March 24, 1944, German troops killed 335 innocent Italian men and boys in an abandoned quarry in retaliation for an attack by Italian partisans the day before.
Bush, first lady Laura Bush and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi trailed a pair of soldiers, who somberly carried a green wreath with a blue ribbon and laid it under an engraved inscription. Bush, alone, approached the wreath, straightened its blue ribbons and bowed his head as a bugler played a mournful melody.
The inscription read in part: "Italians do not curse. Mothers and wives do not weep. Sons, carry proudly the memory of your fathers' holocaust. May the cruel massacre perpetrated against us help, beyond any vengeance to consecrate the rights of human life against the crime of murder."
----
Associated Press Writers Alessandra Rizzo and Victor Simpson contributed to this story.
another bonehead move from the WH political team - what did they expect would come from this meeting with the Pope today? every radio and TV station I tuned into had the story of the Pope trash talking Bush over Iraq.
Did the Pontiff mean old Iraq BEFORE we kicked Saddam's A$$?
I think that we have to admit that the Papal offices have be hijacked by left of center prelates. Perhaps this meeting will clear things up a bit.
One hopes that the is a desicive GOP win in Nov. This will clear up a lot of heads in Europe.
I was raised a Roman Catholic. Although I have not been an adherent of any particular organized religion as an adult, I am outraged at the pope's bilge against our President and our country. I'm beginning to hate most of Europe and think it wasn't worth our blood and treasure to save in WWI and WWII, nor to protect during the Cold War.
Errr, seems I recall some silence on the part of the Vatican regarding another brutal dictator - Hitler, to be exact...
Is the Pope that dense or is he totally out of the loop and brainwashed by liberal media (CNN or the Italian equivalent) being fed into the Vatican? President Bush and the U.S. (and Italy) have freed millions of people in darkness and brutality and not killed hardly any innocents. This Pope is Polish for Peter's sake and he knows of Nazis and W.W.II and Saddam being the exact same thing... I'm talking mass graves, shredded people, WMD (that are now proven to exist), terrorism that we are fighting against (not conquering Iraq for permanent occupation like Soviets or something). Does the Pope not know that Afghanistan now has a hope and future that we are fighting and dying to bring the same also to Iraq? President Bush ought to show him the video of Saddam's torturing shown on only CBN. That video should be shown in public on big screens in every protest so that there is nowhere to look that you don't see the arms, legs and heads chopped off. That should shut the Pope up. I'm thinking the Pope is not the man of God so much anymore as he is the man of sin...
____________________________________________________________________
ROME (AP) -
President Bush got a sharp dose of Europe's opposition to his Iraq policy Friday, quietly in the halls of the Vatican from Pope John Paul II and loudly in the streets of Rome from thousands of demonstrators.
The ailing pontiff complained about recent "deplorable events," an apparent reference to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops. In the absence of a commitment to shared human values, "neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome," he said, struggling to speak.
However, the pope welcomed the recent establishment of an interim government and called for a speedy transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis.
Not far from the Vatican walls, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to demonstrate through central Rome, many with signs demanding Italy withdraw its troops from Iraq. A score of demonstrators hurling stones clashed with police during the march. Others threw firecrackers and set a trash can on fire.
Bush had dinner with a top ally on Iraq, Italian Prime Minister Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. On Saturday, the president heads to Paris to meet with one of his sharpest war critics, French President Jacques Chirac.
Despite Berlusconi's backing, and his decision to send 3,000 Italian troops to Iraq, polls show that a majority of Italians oppose the U.S.-led war and occupation of Iraq, a sentiment common throughout western Europe.
Bush is on a three-day trip to Italy and France to help commemorate the June 1944 liberation of Rome and the allied D-Day invasion of Normandy. He was also using the trip - and an international economic summit next week in Georgia - to try to build more support among leading nations for a new U.N. resolution to deal with post-occupation Iraq.
But the announcement in Baghdad that five U.S. soldiers were killed and five wounded on Friday when their vehicles were attacked in east Baghdad served as a reminder that Iraq remained an extremely dangerous place.
Seated next to the pope, Bush promised his nation would work for "human liberty and human dignity," without making any reference to Iraq. He presented the pontiff with the presidential medal of freedom, America's highest civilian award, calling him "a devoted servant of God."
The president and his wife Laura laid a green wreath at the Ardeatine Cave Memorial, where Nazi occupiers massacred 335 Italian citizens in 1944. Bush, alone, approached the wreath, straightened its blue ribbon and bowed his head as a bugler played.
At the Vatican, Bush sat impassively as the 84-year-old pope, seated in front of a microphone, read his statement in English in a voice that was audible, but not easily understood. His hands trembled from Parkinson's disease.
"Mr. President, your visit to Rome takes place at a moment of great concern for the continuing situation of grave unrest in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in the Holy Land," the pope said.
"In the past few weeks, other deplorable events have come to light which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all."
Although the remarks appeared directed at abuses of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, they could also be taken to include other atrocities such as the kidnapping of foreign civilians in Iraq by Islamic militants and acts such as the beheading of an American contractor.
The pope did not elaborate. Neither would papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, although he did not dispute characterizations that the comments referred primarily to abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.
The spokesman said that while the pope had reiterated the Vatican's long-standing opposition to the war, he made plain he was ready to move forward.
Later, Navarro-Valls issued a brief video statement summing up Bush's visit to the Vatican. "There were some points of agreement, especially regarding the process of normalization of Iraq," he said.
Navarro-Valls also spoke about the U.S. humanitarian role around the world, particularly in Africa, and, as the pope himself had stated, the promotion of moral values in American society.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "We appreciate the Holy Father's words of support for the interim government and for the transfer of sovereignty."
Regarding the pope's apparent reference to Abu Ghraib, McClellan said, "I'm sure the Holy Father is concerned about the abuses. The president is as well. That's why we are acting, taking a systemic look at the prison system and holding those responsible who committed those atrocities."
Friday's was Bush's third meeting with the pope since he became president.
Bush has aggressively courted Roman Catholic voters - a bloc making up about a quarter of the electorate that split evenly between Bush and Democrat Al Gore in 2000.
Thanking Bush for the medal of freedom award, the pontiff said: "God bless America."
"Ya gotta understand Pontiff, were onna Mission from GOD".
How do we know that the "deplorable events" the Pope was speaking of weren't the beheadings and the bombings of innocent Iraqis by the terrorists? Hmm?
I would also remind you that Bush is a Christian. It may be somewhat jaded on your part to imagine that this mission was about PR.
Damn good question!
I hope Bush straightened him out.
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