Cardinal: Papal events with Bush don't signal approval of policies

Published: 2008-04-11

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to the White House to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush does not signal Vatican support of the Bush administration's foreign policies, a Vatican official said. The April 15-16 encounters with the president when the pope arrives in the U.S. and at the White House should "absolutely not" be seen as support of Bush and his stance on Iraq, said Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and a longtime Vatican diplomat. The cardinal spoke to reporters April 11 during a break in an international conference on disarmament sponsored by the Vatican council. "The pope and the Holy See cannot renounce with one visit all the Holy See's positions of rejecting war, always encouraging dialogue to smooth over disagreements and fostering cooperation," he said. He said the argument that U.S.-led troops have to remain in Iraq in order to bring security and protect the Christian minority is open to question. "Obviously the main error was to start a war, a second war" after the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, he said.

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