On Iraq, pope's message to Bush is quiet but firm
VATICAN CITY — With Italians converging on Rome to decry the war in Iraq, President Bush received a more subtle but pointed message Saturday about America's Middle East policy in his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.
Benedict urged the president to pursue a "regional and negotiated" solution to the violence engulfing the Middle East, a Vatican statement said, and voiced alarm about "the worrying situation in Iraq" and the plight of the besieged and dwindling community of Christians there.
Bush later said that he sought to reassure the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, the world's largest Christian faith, about the possibilities for peace. After his private 31-minute meeting with the pope, a man with whom he shares conservative religious beliefs, the president said, "I was in awe, and it was a moving experience."
On a six-nation swing through Europe, Bush also held talks with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, whose center-left government has frequently clashed with Washington.
In fact, Italy is home to the most anti-U.S. sentiment of any of the countries Bush has chosen to visit following a summit in Germany of the Group of 8 leading industrialized nations.
Though he expected admonishment, Bush probably saw political value in appearing with the pope. Any photograph of the president and Benedict is a reminder of areas they do agree on, such as their opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, and thus might serve as a quiet papal blessing that reinforces Republican Party efforts to reach out to Catholic voters.
In foreign policy, however, their differences emerge. Benedict has been vocal in his opposition to bloodshed in the Middle East, singling out the Iraq war in this year's Easter message: "Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees."
By urging Bush to seek a negotiated solution, the pope may have been condemning, however gently, the military option pursued by this U.S. administration in Iraq, or the hands-off approach taken until recently in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Still, the president was spared the more public rebuke he experienced in 2004 when Pope John Paul II, after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bush, condemned the "deplorable" abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
