[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 71 (Thursday, May 1, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E804-E805]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF THE POPE'S VISIT TO THE U.S.

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. RICHARD E. NEAL

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 1, 2008

  Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to enter 
into the Congressional Record today an article that was written by a 
constituent of mine, Thomas J. Carty, PhD, Associate Professor of 
History and American Studies at Springfield College in Springfield, MA. 
His article is entitled, The Risks and Rewards of the Pope's Visit to 
the U.S., and it outlines the history of the interaction of politics 
and religion as it related to papal visits in the past. I thought it 
was a pertinent piece in light of Pope Benedict's recent visit to 
Washington, DC and New York City.

         The Risks and Rewards of the Pope's Visit to the U.S.

                          (By Thomas J. Carty)

       Pope Benedict XVI's meeting this week with a U.S. president 
     during an election year demonstrates how Americans 
     increasingly tolerate the confluence of religion and 
     politics. While George Bush does not face the prospect of 
     election this year, his meeting with Pope Benedict may affect 
     the presidential campaign. Bush's policies have both 
     delighted and disappointed the Pope. The president's 
     opposition to legalized abortion and embryonic stem-cell 
     research earned him praise by John Paul II, but this pope 
     also critiqued Bush and his father for resorting excessively 
     to war in Panama, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq. For Bush, this 
     meeting offers an opportunity to burnish his legacy as a 
     defender of traditional values.
       Bush can maximize benefit from this meeting by studying the 
     successes and failures of Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and 
     Bill Clinton. Johnson's 1965 decision to greet Pope Paul VI 
     strained traditional diplomatic protocol because no pope had 
     previously set foot in the United States. Prior to the pope's 
     landing in New York in order to deliver a speech at the 
     United Nations, therefore, Johnson arranged elaborate plans 
     to avoid appearing biased in favor of the Catholic Church. 
     The president agreed to wait in New York's Waldorf-Astoria 
     hotel for Pope Paul VI to visit Johnson's suite so that the 
     president could deny having initiated the unofficial summit. 
     Johnson certainly hoped such appeals to the pope might have 
     helped his standing among Catholics in an eventual run for 
     reelection. Yet the pope's public criticisms of U.S. bombing 
     in Southeast Asia contributed to Johnson's later decision to 
     withdraw from the 1968 presidential campaign.
       By contrast, Pope John Paul II boosted Ronald Reagan's 
     political popularity among

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     Catholics and conservative non-Catholics in the 1980s. 
     Although the U.S. Catholic bishops opposed the construction 
     of nuclear weapons and criticized Reagan's movement to expand 
     U.S. armaments, John Paul and Reagan shared an uncompromising 
     anticommunism. Meeting with the pope allowed the president 
     to deflect attention from the American Catholic 
     hierarchy's opposition to his arms buildup. When Reagan 
     appointed an official, full-time ambassador to the Vatican 
     in 1984, the president had established a direct diplomatic 
     line of communication with the pope, and subverted the 
     American bishops. Reagan showed none of Johnson's protocol 
     concerns when deciding to stay an extra night in Alaska to 
     coordinate an informal meeting with the pope, whose plane 
     arrived the next day, in May 1984, a year in which a 
     majority of Catholics voted to help him win reelection.
       In the most analogous case with George Bush's position this 
     year, Bill Clinton met with John Paul II in 1999 as a second 
     term president unable to run again for reelection. Absent the 
     Cold War, Clinton aggressively pursued common cause with Pope 
     John Paul II in other areas. Due to Clinton's unapologetic 
     support of legalized abortion and artificial contraception, 
     the policies of this president clashed with the pope's 
     absolute opposition to late-term, or ``partial birth'' 
     abortions. Yet Clinton sought closer connections between U.S. 
     and Vatican economic assistance programs while the Republican 
     congress planned to curtail funding for foreign aid. The 
     Catholic Church also endorsed Clinton's ambitions to provide 
     government assistance to the poor and immigrants. These 
     efforts may have helped Clinton obtain the meeting and photo 
     opportunity with John Paul II at the same time as two Papal 
     Knights in Congress (House Judiciary Committee Chairperson 
     Henry J. Hyde and his legal counsel David P. Shippers) 
     prepared the case for the president's eventual impeachment.
       Since George W. Bush cannot legally compete in the 2008 
     presidential election, Pope Benedict may have more to gain or 
     lose than the president in this year's papal-presidential 
     meeting. Some reports indicate that the pope will court 
     controversy by highlighting abortion in this presidential 
     election year visit to the United States. If so, many 
     Americans will charge the pope with a partisan appeal which 
     threatens America's recent tolerance for Catholicism and 
     church-state cooperation. If Benedict addresses respect for 
     immigrants and the poor, as well as the unborn, however, he 
     can avoid the appearance of favoring one political party 
     platform over another.

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