Bush, Pope Discuss 'Worrisome' Iraq
After gift exchange, private meeting, Vatican describes talks as "warm."
June 9, 2007 — -- In the home stretch of his European tour, President Bush continues to attract demonstrators, this time in Rome.
Tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets to show opposition to the Iraq war and to the expansion of an American military base in Italy. Some upset tables and threw bottles at police who responded with tear gas.
The protests did not affect the president's schedule, which included visits with Pope Benedict XVI and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.
The pope told Bush he had concerns about "the worrisome situation in Iraq."
The pontiff also showed his interest in another "worrisome situation," relations between Washington and Moscow. He probed Bush for a first-hand account of his talks in Germany with Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking, "The dialogue with Putin was also good?"
The president, not wanting to give away any sensitive details to the press corps on hand, said, "I'll tell you in a minute." Both laughed.
Later, the president said, "I was talking to a very smart, loving man. ... I was in awe and it was a moving experience."
Bush said the pope "did express deep concern about the Christians in Iraq, that he was concerned that the society that was evolving would not tolerate the Christian religion."
The president said he assured Pope Benedict that the United States is working hard "to make sure that people lived up to the constitution, the modern constitution voted on by the people that would honor people from different walks of life and different attitudes."
After meeting with Bush at Chigi Palace, Premier Prodi said there are no problems between them: "We do share the same views with regard to many issues, many matters. And we basically agree on how the future of the world should look, should be."
That positive assessment may surprise some analysts. Prodi, who heads a center-left coalition, reversed Italy's earlier support of the Iraq war. His predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, was a staunch Bush ally, and sent Italian troops to Iraq. But he lost a close election last year, partly because of the war's unpopularity.
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