I’m not just talking about Wall Street now, but also about the political structures in America are crucial to the world economy. His column is published every Wednesday. And I wish I were taking our sons along, but traveling to see a pope would demand so much of them.
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Because John Paul was ailing and nearing death, his last meeting with Bush was “mostly ceremonial”, recalled Fleischer, with the president doing most of the talking. So in a sense with Francis, it’s not that really different from covering other world leaders or governing institutions. Do they feel like victims of a “bait-and-switch” scheme?
His name is Francis and tomorrow he takes America by storm.
Our retrospective of the past two papal visits to New York City was compiled from articles by Newsday’s Robert E. Kessler, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s David Ho, the New York Times’ Andrea Mohin, Ian Fisher, Al Baker, Don Van Natta Jr. and Sewell Chan, the Boston Globe’s Michael Levenson, the St. Petersburg Times’ Lisa Buie, the Oakland Tribune’s Michael Collins, USA Today’s Cathy Lynn Grossman, and the Chicago Sun-Times’ Andrew Herrman. In stark contrast, at a delicate time when the Catholic Church was engaged in a legal battle to halt Israel’s confiscation of church properties and agricultural lands belonging to Christian families in Cremisan, Francis announced his intention to visit the “State of Palestine”. When Pope Benedict stepped down, “I was surprised, to say the least!” Pew Research says that puts me in a not-very-select group: just over half of all adults who were raised Catholic have left the church at some point.
“That guidance has been sent out governmentwide to those who ask”, a State Department official told Yahoo News. The Alaska stop generated tons of excitement, along with scores of T-shirts that said: “The Pope Meets the Dope”.
Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, now Pope Francis, wasn’t particularly friendly with the press corps – he hardly ever granted interviews, Vatican journalists say. But the relationship between popes and presidents is seen as important by both sides. “It may take years for that to bear the fruit of conversion, but it’s a start”. And the efforts of Francis, a native of Argentina, also helped lead to the release of Alan Gross, an American imprisoned in Cuba, and three Cubans held in the USA – another part of the bridge-building process that resulted in normalization. He still has a photo of that encounter in his office, but said it could have gone better. Pope Francis sounded a kinder, gentler note, saying, “If someone is gay, who searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?”
Alexandra Greeley, of Virginia, joined the Church in 2008.
Pope Francis also wears more modest outfits than his predecessor who was dubbed once called “the Prada Pope” because of his love of fine fashion, which reportedly included Serengeti sunglasses and red, custom-made shoes, done by a personal cobbler. On Sunday, the leader of the Catholic Church blessed the site of the former World Trade Center, clasping the hands of survivors and relatives of those who died on 9/11, and celbrated Mass with 60,000 people at Yankee Stadium, where the team asked him to keep his Popemobile off the grass. He’s the first Pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit, and a priest who makes all the right noises about the entire portfolio of progressive causes.
Like Bradford, however, he said he was distrustful of the secular media’s portrayal of the pope as a radical change agent.
“It is the evident desire of everyone that this situation now be normalized as quickly as possible with the active participation of the global community and, in particular, the United Nations organization, in order to ensure a speedy return of Iraq’s sovereignty, in conditions of security for all its people”, John Paul said. I believe he is changing the papacy and changing our world for the better. “What shall come of it, not even the wise can foresee”.
Before Benedict’s visit, 13 dissidents occupied a Havana church demanding an audience with the pope.
I wrote then that the bishop of Rome obviously had a right to his opinion, but in our system of government his opinion didn’t automatically carry any more weight than any other person’s.
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I hope you will be able to participate in the Holy Father’s visit either in person or from afar!
