Contrary to American RC – Vatican Will Meet Obama

(NPR) – After winding up his visit to Italy for the G-8 summit Friday, President Obama has his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

Many American Catholics have strongly criticized Obama’s positions on abortion and stem cell research, but the Vatican has been much more benevolent in its assessment of the new president.

The day after November’s election, the pope broke Vatican protocol, sending a personal note of congratulations to the president-elect rather than waiting for Inauguration Day. He called the Obama victory “historic.”

… there is a lot of common ground between Pope Benedict and Obama.

“They’re both in favor of expanded health care. … They’re both in favor of immigration reform. They both favor a multilateral approach to foreign policy and, in particular, they both have, in their ways, reached out to the Islamic world,” Allen says, referring to the pope’s recent visit to the Middle East and the president’s speech in Cairo last month.

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro of Connecticut and Congressman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts spoke about Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate and about tomorrow’s meeting between the pope and President Obama.