Father Joseph Fessio on President Bush & Pope Benedict XVI

(Via Carl Olson of Ignatius Insight): President Bush will pay a visit to the Vatican on Friday (June 13th) -- his sixth visit with a Pope, and third with Benedict XVI this year. The Religion News Service's Francis X. Rocca spoke with Fr. Joseph Fessio, student and friend of the Holy Father, on this remarkable relationship between Pope and an American President:

In the president, the pope finds a key supporter of the Catholic church's positions on such controversial questions as abortion, stem-cell research and same-sex marriage. Bush's arguments have frequently echoed Benedict's appeals to "natural law" and even employ the terms of Catholic social doctrine (despite the fact that the president is a Methodist).

Nowhere has the congruence of their thinking been clearer than at April's welcoming ceremony at the White House, when Bush cited Benedict's denunciation of the "dictatorship of relativism," and the pope noted the importance of American religiosity as inspiration for abolitionism and the civil-rights movement.

To which Bush replied, "Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech."

"They could pretty much have given each other's speech," said William McGurn, Bush's former head speechwriter and a Catholic, who was present at the ceremony (but did not write the president's remarks).

Fessio agreed. "In terms of authentic, normative Catholic teaching, I don't see any area in which the pope and President Bush disagree," he said.

The most notable case of disharmony between the two leaders was over the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger opposed at least as ardently as Pope John Paul II.

"But Iraq is not a matter of Catholic social teaching," Fessio said.

Likewise, Benedict's views on economics, taxation and government regulation (which are known to lie to the left of Bush's) are merely his personal opinions, not doctrine that he holds as binding on the faithful, Fessio said.

Related

• Full text of President George W. Bush's welcome to Pope Benedict XVI.
  

• Full text of Pope Benedict XVI's White House Address.
  

• Joint declaration between the Holy See and the Office of the President of the United States of America released at the end of the private meeting between the Holy Father Benedict XVI and U.S. President George W. Bush (April 16, 2008)
  

• A day-by-day look at President Bush's trip June 9-16 to Europe Associated Press.
  

• Fr. Fessio Forgets a Few... Michael Joseph. Vox Nova June 8, 2008. Michael Joseph takes issue with Fr. Fessio's recollection.
  

Update

• "When Pope Benedict XVI and U.S. President George W. Bush meet at the Vatican June 13, they will scrap the usual formal protocol and instead hold talks and take a leisurely stroll in the Vatican Gardens", reports Catholic News Service:

  The Vatican opted for the "particular" and "unusual" setting as a way to show its appreciation for "the cordial welcome and meeting held at the White House" during the pope's April 15-20 visit to the United States, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said June 9.
  

  Normally heads of state visiting the pope at the Vatican are taken with much fanfare to the pope's library in the main Apostolic Palace.
  

  But "in light of the (pope's) recent pastoral visit to the United States and the United Nations" and for the warm welcome and hospitality shown the pope during his meeting with Bush on the pope's birthday, April 16, an informal setting at the Vatican was chosen instead, said Father Lombardi.
  

  Father Lombardi said Pope Benedict will meet the president and his wife, Laura Bush, at 11 a.m. at the westernmost tip of the Vatican Gardens at the entrance of St. John's Tower.
  

  The pope and Bush will go to a studio on the top floor of the tower to hold closed-door talks after which the two men "will take a brief stroll in the Vatican Gardens," the spokesman said.