OBAMA TO HOST POPE FRANCIS

President Barack Obama will host Pope Francis at
the White House for the first time Wednesday,
warmly embracing the Catholic pontiff seen as
both a moral authority and potent political ally.
The packed and bedecked South Lawn
will echo to strains of the Pontifical
Anthem and a thundering 21-gun salute,
as the 78-year-old is afforded a full
ceremonial welcome on his historic
maiden visit to the United States.
Washington — a city that ordinarily
shrugs its shoulders when presidents,
queens and sheikhs roll through town —
has been enveloped in Pope-mania and so
has the White House.
Obama made an exceedingly rare trip to
the airport to meet the Argentine’s plane
Tuesday, bringing his wife, daughters,
Vice President Joe Biden and his extended
family to underscore the point.
The effusive greeting is part protocol, part
politics — reflecting common ground
between the protestant president and the
Jesuit pope on a gamut of issues from
climate change, to inequality, to
immigration, to US engagement with
Cuba.
The visit is a political mirror of Pope
Benedict’s 2008 visit to George W. Bush’s
White House. Those two men were as
conservative as their current successors
are progressive.
Still, the White House is desperate to
avoid suggestions it is co-opting a holy
man revered by America’s roughly 70
million Catholics to batter Republican foes
in Congress.
“The goal of this meeting is to give the
two men the opportunity to talk about
their shared values,” said White House
spokesman Josh Earnest.
“There’ll be time for politics, frankly, the
other 364 days of the year,” he said.
“At least for that one meeting, it will be
an opportunity for the president to put
politics aside and have an opportunity to
talk about the values that he and the
pope have in common.”
Francis has signaled he is also unlikely to
wade directly into America’s bitterly
fought politics.
The Vatican played a crucial role in
brokering talks between Havana and
Washington that led to the recent
restoration of diplomatic ties after more
than half a century.
Before leaving Cuba on Tuesday, Francis
urged Cubans “to build bridges, break
down walls, sow seeds of reconciliation,”
in comments that appeared to allude to
the nascent reconciliation across the
Florida Straits.
Source; The Guardian