‘Much more than your typical state visit’
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- July
- 10
President Obama and Pope Benedict XVI meet this morning. What will it look like?
Early this morning, Inside the Vatican’s Robert Moynihan shared this image:
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In about three hours, US President Barack Obama will arrive in the Vatican to meet Pope Benedict XVI.
The leader of the world’s greatest temporal power will carry a gift for the leader of the world’s greatest spiritual power.
He will drive in his limousine into Vatican City, and into the Cortile San Damaso (photo, left, taken in 1930), the little square at the very heart of the Vatican.
He will get out of his car (parked more or less where the single car in this photo is parked), go into the door at the far end of the square, and, accompanied by American Archbishop James Harvey, the head of the papal household, take the elevator up to the fourth floor.
He will walk down a marble corridor to the Pope’s private library, overlooking St. Peter’s Square (the third window from the right on the top floor in this photo).
The Pope will greet him, and Obama will greet the Pope, and hand him a gift.
What gift will that be?
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What are Obama and the pope discussing in one, relatively brief meeting?
According to the AP, they were likely to cover world poverty, the Middle East and “other topics.”
But the visit was expected to be “largely personal and spiritual.”
“There are issues on which they’ll agree, issues on which they’ll disagree and issues on which they’ll agree to continue to work on going forward,” deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough told reporters.
“Given the influence of the Catholic Church globally,” he said, and “the influence of the Catholic Church and church social teaching on the president himself, he recognizes that this is much more than your typical state visit.”
Here’s a shot of the pope meeting with “first ladies” associated with the G8 economic summit (AP Photo/L’Osservatore Romano):
This entry was posted
on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 8:00 am by Gary Stern.
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The world of religion, we don't have to tell you, is vast. The purpose of this blog is for Stern to note, flag and comment on some of the more interesting religious developments on the scene – weighty and quirky, somber and laughable, far away and just down the road. He won't interpret Scripture, take sides in conflicts or judge anyone. But he will take advantage of the journalist's license to observe.
