Pope to President: Don’t call me, I’ll call you

April 13, 2008

There may be an explanation for this that doesn’t look like an obvious snub, but nothing comes to mind.

Guess who’s not coming to dinner? Pope Benedict XVI.

President Bush and his wife, Laura, will host a White House dinner in honor of the pontiff Wednesday evening. U.S. Catholic leaders from around the nation will attend. The menu will offer Bavarian-style food in recognition of the pope’s German heritage. It’s even the pope’s 81st birthday. But he won’t be there.

“He’s on a very ambitious official schedule,” Anita McBride, Mrs. Bush’s chief of staff, said Friday. “He’ll be meeting with U.S. bishops that night” at a university in Washington.

Now, it’s not that the Pope is avoiding Bush altogether. The President and First Lady will greet the Pope at Andrews Air Force Base, and there will be a formal welcoming ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday morning.

But the White House also scheduled a dinner in the Pope’s honor for that evening, and he’s apparently decided he has better things to do on Wednesday night.

Complicating matters slightly, Raw Story reported that there are “no competing events listed on the pope’s schedule.”

Faiz noted this awkward discussion during Friday’s White House press briefing, when spokesperson Scott Stanzel couldn’t explain why the Pope won’t attend his own dinner hosted by the president..

Q: I’m sorry, the Pope doesn’t attend a dinner in his honor?

MR. STANZEL: No.

Q: How does that work?

MR. STANZEL: He doesn’t come into the building.

Q: But then it’s not a dinner for the Pope, is it?

MR. STANZEL: It’s in honor of his visit. There will be leaders from the Catholic community from all over the country who are in town for that visit.

Q: Is there a reason the Pope doesn’t attend the dinner?

MR. STANZEL: I don’t know. I don’t have the full extent of his schedule.

Awkward.

Could the pope be lying? Nah, maybe he doesn’t like some of the re-borns comparing his church to the “great whore”…anyway he’s infallible…

  • Bush’s dinners are always such torturous affairs…
    You can’t blame the Pope for “begging off.”

  • it’s probably because bush invited mccain and his spiritual advisor hagee to the dinner as well 😉

  • There’s a few questions I’d like asked, well, and answered for that matter. Did the Pope, or someone at the Holy See actually say yes when it was first brought up? When did the Vatican, or Pope change his plans? Was it after a guest list had been announced? Was it after the Principals stuff came out? Or was it after the President admitted to being guilty of war crimes? And since Stanzel was asked about it Friday, that can’t be the case. Did the US ask and plan and announce it before they ever heard back from the Vatican? Because I can see the incompetents who run everything over here just assuming that of course the Holy Father will come. And after they got the negative, did they then decide to have it in his honor anyway?

  • How much will all of this cost? Is this paid for by taxpayers’ dollars? In my opinion, the president shouldn’t associate our government with a bigot like the Pope.

  • I don’t get it. It is not as though the Pope is a liberal, or Bush is anti-Catholic or anti-religion, and the Catholic church has accommodated all manner of slimy evil bastards over the years, including several as Pope. And historically they’ve been downright exuberant about Christian crusaders invading moslem lands. So why the snub?

  • Hey—the guy already had to deal with one fuhrer in the last century. Maybe he’s not anxious to associate with another one….

  • The President and First Lady will greet the Pope at Andrews Air Force Base, and there will be a formal welcoming ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday morning. — CB

    Any bets that Bush won’t do a tit-for-tat on one or both those occasions? He may have to go bike riding in Crawford, or something. And I’ll bet this is the last time this Pope gets a visa to enter US 🙂

    And Vatican has, officially, been against the invasion of Iraq even before the Rat’s gentle rebuke. Jan Pawel (John Paul) had been fairly vocal on the subject.

  • I just wish the pope would go, blow the chimp, and the we could impeach the m@ther f@cker already.

    Please, you papal majesty, do your duty to the world and your god, go to the WH, pucker up,and perform your duty on dur chimpfurher.

  • Yawn. I could not care less where the Pope goes or what he does – in this country or any other.

  • I happen to know that, at the time the White House is expecting him for dinner, the Pope is scheduled to attend a gun show in western Pennsylvania, followed by a Southern Baptist bake-off and snake-handling. Time permitting, he’ll bless the trucks at a NASCAR tractor pull while converting water into Bud Lite (which isn’t much of a miracle, after all).

  • There’s a good explanation for the Pope deciding to stay in his hotel room and order a pizza instead: remember when Bush said he won’t consort with terrorist leaders because it gives them credibility? It’s like that.

  • From CNN

    Benedict’s prayer service that evening with U.S. bishops at a famed Washington basilica preclude him from coming to the dinner, according to the White House.

    Even if you are not religious, you have to respect that at a prayer service is more important than a dinner. Even if it is with the Pres.

  • The Vatican received intelligence that Dick Cheney and Hillary were to go duck hunter for the dinner and became concerned it would result in an unprovoked attack against Iran.

  • Bush may think torture is cool, but the RCC has disagreed for a while … sometime after the Inquisition shut down, admittedly, but still.

  • Well well, Ratzi the Nazi isn’t.

    This is a huuuuuuge deal with voting Catholics come November when they have to look at Johnny McSame and his “spiritual advisor.”

  • The invasion of Iraq and the use of torture alone — both condemned by the official Church — sorry, Michael Novak — before the fact, after the fact, and at the time , are enough to explain the snub. No need to invoke Hagee, et al., though that can’t have helped.

    It is calculated, deliberate, and meant to be noticed.

    P.B. will do whatever is required by protocol between Heads of State — the SCV is a country, after all, though it’s the size of the Mall of America — and nothing more.

  • I’m betting the bunch in the bubble at the WH just assumed the Pope would pick up his skirts and run right into the War Criminal’s eager clutches. Probably too late to cancel the festivities, and too embarrasing. The guest of honor should be praying for peace publicly. That would send the right message. Of course I don’t know why he’s here in the first place, but if he intended to give Bush the papal finger from the start that would be even more delicious.

  • I prefer to think of the Pope’s snub as the early verdict of history on the Worst President Ever.

  • I wonder if the snub isn’t for the Pope’s Social Sins that got zero play from Mr Religion.

    1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control
    2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research
    3. Drug abuse
    4. Polluting the environment
    5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
    6. Excessive wealth
    7. Creating poverty

    Starts out looking good for the Republicans, but ends up slamming their only real concern, $$$$$.

  • It’s way too much to hope for but maybe, one by one, the worlds leaders will start to shun Bush/Cheney/Rice. This could help make the pope slightly relevant.

  • “I think the pope’s message is going to be ‘Don’t be afraid.’ I think the overcoming of fear can take away the impulse for war.”

    That message wouldn’t go over very well while he’s sitting at the same table as Dick “Dick” Cheney. Dick would probably raise the Terror Alert Level just to compensate.

  • This kind of reminds me of the old joke….
    Q. Where does a 300 pound gorilla sit?
    A. Anywhere it wants.

    Imagine this scenerio,
    The White House being all excited about the Pope coming to this country, proceeds to plan a dinner in his honor, they plan every detail, the china, the silver, the menu, the flowers and music. Its going to be a grand affair. They send out engraved invitations to all the important poets priests and politicians. They mailed the invitations way in advance to insure all the “right” people would be there. The Vatican ends up finding out the Pope is the guest of honor at this “gala affair” via third persons (invited guests). To put it in a nutshell, one does not tell the Pope that he is coming to dinner, one asks the Pope “Will you grace us with your presence?”

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