AmericanPapist Comments
Well, this year he met with Israeli President Peres while still at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, admittedly in early September.
To me, the refusal to meet with Secretary Rice is, on its face, a fairly significant slap at the U.S. As far as "diplomatic credit" is concerned, I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between a Pope and the U.S. Secretary of State.
I'd like to hear a better explanation than the one you hypothesize before I change my mind.
John Paul II used to receive diplomatic guests while on vacation. Remember just before the war in Iraq started President Bush talked to the Pope while His Holiness was on vacation.
It is possible that the US wasn't hip to the change in procedure.
WAC
From a Catholic News Service article titled Vatican: Pope's refusal to meet Rice should not be seen as snub :
"The only reason she wasn't received was that she came during a period when the pope doesn't receive anyone. It was a purely technical question of protocol," an informed Vatican source told Catholic News Service Sept. 20.
The source said it was "absolutely not" the Vatican's intention to rebuff Rice or signal disagreement with U.S. policy on the Middle East.
#1 I think too much is being made of scuttlebutt - which is why I decided against even translating Corriere della Sera's artiicle for the PAPA RATZINGER FORUM where I try to translate every item I see that I feel should be shared.
#2) You comment: "If Condi requested a meeting just to 'boost her diplomatic credit' than it's not at all surprising the pope would decline. Asking for advice or offering support is one thing. Photoshoots are another." - Does anyone really think that when making her request, if she really did, Ms. Rice would have said "I am requesting a meeting to boost my diplomatic credit"?
#3 Does anyone really think the Pope would be such a boor as to flat out deny any such request from the Secretary of State, especially since she is a woman?
#4 If there had been such a denial, surely no one in his right mind at the Vatican would have used the lame line "The Pope is on vacation, I'm sorry" which just doesn't fly in the light of all known past and present precedents.
The Pope is on vacation when he is in Lorenzago or Les Combes, not when he is spending the summer months in CG because of the weather and carrying on his routine as usual.
Several weeks ago the Pope gave a sermon on how religious "leave all" so that they could be "available to all" and while that makes for a catchy phrase, I grimaced when I read it since not even Christ was available to all since He too chose to be only in one place at a time. If he was in Jersualem, He was not available to people in Tyre. And I could not remember one Pope with whom the ordinary Joe could make an appointment...outside of the audience venue. Perhaps Rice read the Pope's sermon and took it literally....that he was really available to all. She must learn that Popes now speak half the time knowing that whatever they say will end up in the media and in history books at Barnes and Noble... so they have to say the hyperbolically nice thing constantly.
Pope Sixtus V prior to the media had no such expectations and said ornery things. Even the Councils back then said ornery things and some lambasted Bishops for taking things not theirs from monasteries but now Vatican II praised Bishops or didn't mention them. We are too conscious of the public record now. And Rice must parse our words about availibility.
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