Bush to greet Pope Benedict XVI “in big way”
Apparently, President Bush is going to make the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in the United States one for the books. According to the AP (via CNN), Bush is preparing a very special and atypical greeting:
That changes this week, and President Bush is pulling out all the stops: driving out to a suburban military base to meet Pope Benedict XVI’s plane, bringing a giant audience to the South Lawn and hosting a fancy East Room dinner.
These are all firsts.
Bush has never before given a visiting leader the honor of picking him up at the airport. In fact, no president has done so at Andrews Air Force Base, the typical landing spot for modern leaders.
A crowd of up to 12,000 is due at the White House on Wednesday morning for the pope’s official, pomp-filled arrival ceremony. It will feature the U.S. and Holy See anthems, a 21-gun salute, and the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. Both men will make remarks before their Oval Office meeting and a send-off for his popemobile down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The White House crowd will be the largest of Bush’s presidency. It even beats the audience last spring for Queen Elizabeth II, which numbered about 7,000.
The evening festivities will mark the first time the Bushes have put on a high-profile meal in honor of someone who isn’t even a guest. Wednesday is the pontiff’s 81st birthday, and the menu celebrates his German heritage with Bavarian-style food.
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Then, hopefully, all of this will provide a wonderful platform for the Pope’s denunciation of “preventive war” as a violation of what the Roman Catholic catechism says about “just war.”
“Then, hopefully, all of this will provide a wonderful platform for the Pope’s denunciation of “preventive war” as a violation of what the Roman Catholic catechism says about “just war.”
According to the latest Bishops Statement, that I suppose was done with some consultation with the Vatican, we are sort of past that question and have a new set of questions to ask and evaluate.
Any way I noticed that Pope Benedict did not do this last year when he met Bush, nor did he do it his official greetings to the American Ambassador last month.
A little fact but I read that Bush will have the record after this for Meeting the Pope most as to US Presidents.
I thought the Washington Post had a very insightful article on Bush, Catholics , and the Papacy in today’s edition
We are never past the question of the justice of this war.
Maybe an international entourage can accompany the pope and rightfully charge Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and Rice for the war crimes they committed.
Andrew Sullivan already predicts that Bush would be arrested for such if he does travel outside the U.S. after his presidency expires.
Come on liberals, get over it. If the Pope can get over it why can’t you? Anyways the main issue is A-B-O-R-T-I-O-N. McCain wins the Catholic vote hands down after the Benedict visit.
Mark:
Rumsfeld already has been hustled out of Paris and to “safety” in Germany, when a French court began to process “war crimes” charges against him. The EU WILL do this someday to Bush, just as they did it to Pinochet–especially if the American economy continues to be wrecked by the morass in the Middle East.
According to The official sequence of events, they’re going to close with the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”.
The “Battle Hymn” is one of my favorites. [Vomits]
In case some here missed it, our military ‘leaders’ just declared thyis week that Iran is now the biggest threat to our ‘successes’ in Iraq. Pat Buchanan today said there is a 50/50 chance we will attack Iran by October. Seymour Hersch has done numerous pieces of journalism on Cheney/Bush’s having been looking over the past three years for any ‘good’ excuse to use military force on Iran.
The question of the justice of ‘preventive’ or ‘pre-emptive’ war is now MOST germane.
Just looked at the sequence of events Christopher posted. It is most disgusting.
Just looked at the sequence of events Christopher posted. It is most disgusting.
I know — and even the soprano they selected to sing a rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer” — Kathleen BATTLE”?
I mean, what is that? Horrifying.
(I bet she’s a warmonger, too).
Yes, Michael, the White House is trying to impress the Pope with its militancy and nationalism. They don’t get it yet.
But I am sure some of the people on the net will be more impressed and pleased with Bush’s musical choices and his ceremony than the Papal mass I will be at.
Benedict Ratzinger is no fool, and I’m betting that, at some point, Bush and his fellow nationalists are going to get an ugly surprise.
digbydolben,
I agree.
What else really explains Benedict’s ‘inability’ to break bread with Mr. Bush, even at such a big ‘party’ in the former’s honor. A ‘scheduling confict’?
btw, GMH still grieves your early departure. ;)
I agree.
What else explains Benedict’s not breaking bread with Mr. Bush, even at a 10,00 plus person party in the former’s honor? An unfortunate ‘conflict of schedules’? Really?
Btw, GMH still grieves your early departure (that is, as much as he can in heaven). ;)
btw, GMH still grieves your early departure. ;)
Oh, my God! You’re the only person beside my thesis director who has recognised that “handle” in the six years I’ve been using it!
You are obviously a gentleman and a scholar!
DD,
I do not know about the gentleman part… But I am a huge Hopkins lover. If you have not read it yet, go to the 50 some pages that von Balthasar has written about Hopkins, in his Glory of the Lord volume, Lay Styles. I am away from my library and cannot remember if its vol, 3 or 4. (Henry can chime in). I ran across the Hopkins scholar Paul Marianni at a conference one time (whose son is a Jesuit and who is no working on an intellectual biography of the poet), and he told me that the B. piece was about the best thing he ever read on the poet. Of coure, I am biased, as the only thinker I love more than Hopkins is von Balthasar.
I don’t know this passage of the Balthasar book, but I am going to try to find it.
I know Hopkins almost inside and out–journals, letters, juvenalia–and I find most books of criticism pretty unsatisfactory, so I’ll try to get my hands on the Von Balthasar as quickly as I can.
However, I am NOT one of those pietistic Catholic literary scholars who believes Hopkins was comfortable in his own skin–not at the beginning of his life, and only barely at the end. The two best books about him that I know are Julie Saville’s A Queer Chivalry, and the book by Allison Sulloway called Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Victorian Temper. I once started to read a rather dense tome on “Hopkins’ Christology,” but I had to return it to a library before I got to finish it.
I have the Sulloway book and have found it very helpful.
I’ll check out the Saville. What do you think of the older Martin biography, btw, or Lawler’s more recent book, applying his “strucuralist poetics” to Hopkins?
I don’t like the Lawler book; I think it’s unreasonably angry over Martin’s interpretation of Hopkins’ sexuality and other things. The Martin biography IS flawed, but beautifully written. The best biography I’ve read is Norman White’s.
In trying to understand Hopkins, however, I think it’s important to appreciate his innate modesty and his Victorian prurience: there are things about his nature that he, frankly, didn’t want us to know.
If he were being considered for canonization, it would be almost impossible to learn some very essential things from the record. His “cause” would have to depend entirely upon miracles–of which I know none.
Michael Novak wants to prepare his neoconservative cohorts for what he senses is coming during Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmRjZWE5NTExNWEwNDRlYTAyMTM2OWM1NzExMjJlZTU=