By IRNA,
Vatican : Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to address the United Nations when he visits the US from tomorrow.
Vatican watchers predict less public criticism of the Iraq war and more agreement when Pope Benedict XVI meets with President Bush this week.
That could help the White House buttress its position on continuing the controversial and costly war on terrorism, particularly among Catholic voters, even as Democrats step up their outreach to Catholics over ending the war.
These days, the Roman Catholic Church’s biggest concern regarding Iraq is protecting what is left of the Christian community there.
Just before Easter, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Paulos Faraj Rahho was kidnapped and later killed.
Pope Benedict is keenly aware of the fragile situation facing the few remaining Christians and is eager not to upset the balance.
The Vatican isn’t entirely happy with the conduct of US policy on Iraq. The pope is expected to raise concerns about the fate of thousands of Iraqi Christians who fled the country to escape sectarian violence. The US has accepted only tiny numbers of refugees.
More broadly, though, a number of Vatican watchers believe the pope — like Bush — has come to embrace the importance of establishing religious freedom and tolerance in the Middle East, as well as elsewhere in the world.
A major theme of Pope Benedict’s papacy has been the importance of reason and faith coexisting.
Reason without faith, he has said, leads to empty materialism, while faith without reason leads to extremism, as in parts of the Middle East. The pope sees the US as effectively blending the two, despite its excesses, observers say.
Pope Benedict also has spoken out against intolerance in the Islamic world, provoking a violent backlash in the Muslim world with a 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany.
The administration is going to some lengths to make the bonds with the Vatican appear even tighter.
The pope will get a second formal welcoming ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House the next day. His trip to Washington and New York also will include an address to the United Nations, outdoor Masses in Nationals Park and Yankee Stadium and a visit to Ground Zero in New York, site of the World Trade Center attack.
In a previsit video, the pope said the theme of his visit will be “Christ our hope.”
“The world has greater need of hope than ever,” he said, “hope for peace, for justice and for freedom, but this hope can never be fulfilled without obedience to the law of God, which Christ brought to fulfillment in the commandment to love one another.”