Wednesday, June 24, 2009

President Obama Accepts Holy Father's Invitation

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has extended an invitation to the President to meet with him on July 10th and President Obama has very graciously accepted the invitation. The Pope and President have had telephone conversations previously but this will be the first face to face meeting. The White House confirmed that Mrs. Obama will join the President when he meets with the Holy Father.

Pope Benedict XVI broke protocol by sending a congratulatory message to Barack Obama after he won the election in November (54% of Catholics supported him). The normal practice is to wait for the swearing-in (at which the Pope also sent greetings). Anxious to meet with Obama, the Pope agreed to an afternoon meeting to accommodate the President's schedule. Typically, popes have such meetings in the morning.



3 comments:

oskar said...

Truly a great honor and responsibility of President Obama.

Are the right-wing fringe Catholics going to start a petition campaign now to stop the meeting?

Will they call upon Catholics to stop donating money to the Church?

Will they demonstrate at the Vatican?

In any event, I hope and pray that the Holy Father manages to get through to President Obama on the matter of abortion.

Allen Murphy said...

Lets hope The Holy Father enlightened the President on sparing the life of the unborn, marriage between a man and a woman etc. Catholics- please wake up- You either are Catholics accepting all Church teaching or your god is Caesar (aka Obama). Allen Murphy sfo

Katherine said...

My god is God. I support ALL of the Church's social teachings -- life, the dignity of workers, protection of God's creation, economic justice and human rights.