On July 10, President Obama and his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, will meet for the first time. They will like each other and find much in common. It is reasonable to suppose that their conversation will be framed as much by the Holy Father's recent encyclical writing as by the president’s policy initiatives.
Indeed, Veritas in Caritate (“Truth in Charity”) – the title and substance of Benedict XVI’s much awaited and soon to be released third encyclical will likely provide an ample agenda for the Rome meeting.
In Barack Obama, Pope Benedict will find a leader taking practical steps to fulfill our obligations and opportunities to the world community. While historians will differ, and at this early point promise is surely not yet fulfillment, it can be argued that Obama reflects a fuller understanding of church teaching than any American president in modern time, even as other presidents have captured and pursued portions of this teaching.
As Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame said in introducing President Obama at the University’s 2009 commencement:
“We honor [President Obama] for the qualities and accomplishments the American people admired in him when they elected him. . . . He is a leader who has great respect for the role of faith and religious institutions in public life. He has said: “Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.” He is the first African American to be elected president, yet his appeal powerfully transcends race. In a country that has been deeply wounded by racial hatred – he has been a healer.
He has set ambitious goals across a sweeping agenda -- extending health care coverage to millions who don’t have it, improving education especially for those who most need it, promoting renewable energy for the sake of our economy, our security, and our climate. He has declared the goal of a world without nuclear weapons and has begun arms reduction talks with the Russians. He has pledged to accelerate America’s fight against poverty, to reform immigration to make it more humane, and to advance America’s merciful work in fighting disease in the poorest places on earth.”
Of course, President Obama is not at one with the church on the issue of abortion and stem cell research. This, too, was conscientiously observed by Jenkins in his introduction, wherein he stated, “but President Obama is not someone who stops talking to those who differ with him.”
This quality of the president I am privileged to know firsthand, and while I have not met His Holiness, certainly the public impression is that Benedict XVI is hardly someone reticent to insist upon the truth of the human person. The president has said in the past, too glibly for many Catholics, that on the issue of unborn life, he would “agree to disagree” with our church. The Holy Father should probingly ask “why?” -- after all, as Benedict has reflected in his draft: “if personal and social sensibility toward the welcoming of a new life is lost, even other forms of welcoming (life) useful to social life become fruitless.”