Why people waste their time and energy in discussing Church “policy” with the Pope is beyond my comprehension. The Catholic Church is only going to change their stance on issues such as abortion, divorce, etc. when they are good and ready to do so. It took the Vatican over 400 years to even partially “recognize,” not admit, just “recognize” that Galileo was correct in that the Sun was at the center of our Solar System, and not Earth as dictated by the Church for centuries beforehand. Therefore, anyone expecting the Church to change policies or admit that their position on a given issue is wrong should pull up a chair and wait…
Anyway, who really cares about those clowns in the Vatican. They’re just a bunch of frustrated old farts living in the past. TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
VATICAN CITY – U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, a pro-abortion rights Roman Catholic, met with Pope Benedict XVI in an unannounced visit at the Vatican on Friday.
Vatican officials said the meeting was strictly private and U.S. officials declined to give details.
Biden, who was in Rome to mark Italy’s 150th anniversary as a unified nation, is an observant Catholic who nevertheless supports abortion rights. Benedict has long insisted that Catholic politicians follow church teaching on such “nonnegotiable” issues as abortion, which the Vatican strongly opposes.
Some U.S. bishops have said priests should refuse to give Communion to politicians who support abortion.
The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, published a photo of Biden and the pope in its afternoon edition.
The media learned of the meeting when journalists at the Vatican to cover Benedict’s meeting with the Palestinian president spotted Biden’s car in the Vatican courtyard.
When the then speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic and prominent abortion rights politician, met with Benedict in 2009, he told her that Catholic politicians had a duty to protect life “at all stages of its development.”
The Vatican’s handling of that meeting recalled its treatment of Geraldine Ferraro, a Catholic who was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984. She opposed abortion, but also opposed outlawing it.
Her 1985 meeting with Pope John Paul II was never officially announced and no photo was released.
