WASHINGTON — The leader of the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics has been to the White House only once in history. 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.
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These are all firsts.
Bush has never before given a visiting leader the honor of picking him up at the airport.
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, according to officials. Both men will make remarks before their Oval Office.
The president explained the special treatment — particularly the airport greeting.
"One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith,” Bush told the EWTN Global Catholic Network in an interview aired Friday.
He added that he wanted to honor Benedict's conviction that "there's right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies.”
The Bush-Benedict get-together will be the 25th meeting between a pope and a sitting president.
The first did not come until shortly after the end of World War I, when Woodrow Wilson was received at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XV in 1919.
"The pope represents not just the Catholic church but the possibility of moral argument in world affairs and it is very important for American presidents to rub up against that from time to time,” said George Weigel, a Catholic theologian and biographer of Pope John Paul II.
The Vatican — seat of a government as well as a religious headquarters — has an interest, too.
"It wants to be a player in world affairs, and everyone understands that to do that you have to be in conversation with the United States,” said John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the independent National Catholic Reporter.
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President Eisenhower walks with Pope John XXIII at the Vatican on Dec. 6, 1959. ASSOCIATED PRESS
PAPAL VISIT
Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to arrive in the United States on Wednesday. His schedule includes:
Wednesday
•A visit to the White House.
•A meeting with U.S. bishops.
Thursday
•Holy Mass at Washington's National Stadium.
•Meeting with communities of Catholic Universities.
•Meeting with representatives of other religions.
Friday
•A speech at the United Nations, New York.
Saturday
•Holy Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.
•A visit to St. Joseph's Seminary, New York.
Sunday
•A visit to Ground Zero, New York.
•Holy Mass at Yankee Stadium, New York.
Pressing issues
Pope Benedict XVI may not see them or hear them, but aggrieved Roman Catholic activists hope his U.S. visit this week will help them draw attention to issues ranging from the ordination of women and gay rights to sex abuse by priests and the Vatican ban on contraception.
The groups have planned vigils, demonstrations and news conferences to press their causes as the pope visits Washington and New York.
This evening, the eve of his arrival, supporters of women's ordination will host what they are calling "an inclusive Mass” at a Methodist church in Washington, presided over by Catholic women — including two who were recently excommunicated.
"We cannot welcome this pope until he begins to do away with the church's continuing violence of sexism,” said Sister Donna Quinn, coordinator of the National Coalition of American Nuns.
Participants in the service will include Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie McGrath, who were excommunicated last month by Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis because they were ordained as part of a women-priest movement condemned by the Vatican.
"In the face of one closed door after another, Catholic women have been innovative, courageous and faithful to the church,” said Aisha Taylor, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference. "They continue to make a way where is none.”
The Associated Press
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