Tim Russert's special moment with the Holy Father Benedict XVI

It was back in April when Pope Benedict XVI came to Washington. The Rev. David O'Connell, the president of The Catholic University of America, was hosting the pope for a large meeting with bishops.

Before that meeting, the Vatican said O'Connell could invite 10 guests to a small session with Benedict . Tim Russert and I were the only journalists on that special guest list. We were both thrilled, but Tim, a devout Catholic with deep roots in the Church, was very excited.

While we were waiting for the pope to arrive, he was like a little boy. He had his rosaries in his hand, ready for the pope to bless them. This was not the Tim Russert whom we all saw and admired as he grilled presidents, prime ministers, kings and mere politicians. When the pope finally approached him, he could barely utter a word. This was a special moment, and he knew it.

For those of us who knew him for a long time, we certainly could appreciate what he was enjoying. His roots in Buffalo, New York, were deep and very humble. His dad, "Big Russ," was a sanitation worker who had often worked two shifts to make ends meet. Russert knew where he was coming from, and as a result never complained about his own hard work for NBC News.

The same passion that he brought to covering politics and to his religious faith, he also brought to sports. He loved the Washington Wizards and the Washington Nationals, but he really loved the Buffalo Bills. How often would he end "Meet the Press" with the words "Go Bills." All of us Bills fans had to endure four straight Super Bowl losses in the early 1990s, but few suffered as deeply as Tim. We often spoke about those days. I think he remembered every play of every game.

He was a unique talent and a wonderful man. I feel especially sad that he died during this Father's Day weekend. It was such a special time for him, given his close relationship with Luke, his son, who just graduated from Boston College, and with "Big Russ."

We will miss him. My deepest condolences to Luke, Big Russ, his wife, Marueen, and his entire family.

By Wolf Blitzer
CNN

Pope Benedict XVI hosted US President George W. Bush at the Vatican

Vatican City, Jun. 13, 2008 (vaticans.org) - Pope Benedict XVI  hosted US President George W. Bush at the Vatican on June 13 for an extraordinarily cordial private talk.

The warmth of the Holy Father's reception for the American leader, and the enthusiasm that Bush showed during the meeting, prompted several Italian journalists to question whether the American president might be considering a personal commitment to the Catholic faith.

Breaking with the usual Vatican protocol, the Pope met President Bush in the Tower of St. John, rather than in the apostolic palace. After their private conversation, the two men walked together through the Vatican gardens, visiting the Lourdes grotto there.

The Vatican announced that the unusual reception was arranged "to respond to the cordiality of the welcome received by the Supreme Pontiff during his recent visit to the United States of America." In April the Pope had been clearly surprised and delighted by the warmth of his reception at the White House.

An official statement released by the Vatican after the Friday meeting indicated that the Pope's conversation with President Bush touched upon their shared "commitment in defense of fundamental moral values." They also spoke about international concerns including the tensions in the Middle East, the food crisis, and global poverty.

For reporters covering the presidential visit, however, the main focus of attention was not the policy discussion between the Pope and the President, but their personal relationship. President Bush-- who was probably meeting the Pope for the last time before leaving office in January 2009-- has spoken openly about his admiration for Pope Benedict . Reporters in Rome have openly questioned whether the American leader will follow the example of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was received into the Catholic Church shortly after he left office.

Neither the Vatican nor the White House has encouraged this speculation. President Bush is a committed Evangelical Protestant, for whom a move toward Catholicism would be a dramatic step. On the other hand his brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, is convert to the Catholic faith.

President Bush clearly appreciated the special treatment that he was receiving at the Vatican. "Such an honor, such an honor," he repeated as he met Pope Benedict .

The President addressed the Pontiff as "your eminence"-- improper protocol, since that title is used for cardinals, while the Pope is properly addressed as "your holiness." But in an earlier meeting with Pope Benedict just over one year ago, President Bush had addressed the Pontiff simply as "sir."

Some Vatican officials had suggested that Bush might join Pope Benedict in prayer at the Vatican's Lourdes grotto, just as the two men had prayed together at the White House in April. But if they prayed together again during this meeting, they did so privately. At the grotto the Pope and the President sat together for a short performance by the Sistine Chapel Choir.

cwnews

Pope Benedict XVI's weekly public audience on June 11 about St. Columbanus

Vatican City, Jun. 11, 2008 (vaticans.org) - Pope Benedict XVI spoke of St. Columbanus, the 6th-century Irish monk, at his regular weekly public audience on June 11.

After his education and spiritual formation in an Irish monastery, Columbanus and a group of 12 companions became missionaries on the European continent, the Pope recalled. They spread the faith "where the migration of peoples from the north and the east had caused entire Christian regions to lapse back into paganism."

This first "re-evangelization" of Europe succeeded, the Pope said, because of the powerful witness of sanctity in the missionaries' own lives. Soon Columbanus and his monks had to found a new monastery to accommodate the young men seeking to enter their community. Then a third monastery was started and the movement began to take root.

St. Columbanus wrote Regula Monachorum, which, Pope Benedict remarked, is "the only ancient Irish monastic rule we possess today." He also introduced the practice of private confession to continental Europe.

After rebuking King Theodoric for his adultery, St. Columbanus and his Irish companions sent into exile. But when their ship headed for Ireland ran aground, they returned to Europe, setting out to evangelize new territories around Switzerland and northern Italy-- a region deeply infected with the Arian heresy. The Irish monk wrote against the heresy and urged Pope Boniface IV to take action to restore orthodox Church leadership. In Bobbio, Italy, the Irish monks founded a new monastery, where St. Columbanus died in 615.

Because of his "ascetic life and his uncompromising attitude toward the corruption of the powerful," St. Columbanus invites comparisons with St. John the Baptist, the Holy Father said. Yet his uncompromising and sometimes severe attitude gave him the ability "to open himself freely to the love of God and to respond with his entire being."

Today, Pope Benedict concluded, the example set by St. Columbanus is a special challenge to Christians who, like the 6th-century Irish monk, wish to "nourish the Christian roots" of European culture and bring the message of the Gospel to a society that has become estranged from the faith.

CWNews

Pope Benedict XVI:hunger and malnutrition were unacceptable

VATICAN CITY, Jun.10, 2008 (vaticans.org) - As world leaders were meeting in Rome to work out a response to the global food crisis, the Vatican weighed in on two levels -- morality and macroeconomics.

Pope Benedict XVI laid out the moral principles in a message June 3 to the World Food Security Summit, saying that hunger and malnutrition were unacceptable in a world that has sufficient levels of agricultural production and resources.

The pope said a chief cause of hunger was lack of solidarity with others, and he emphasized that protecting the right to life means helping to feed the hungry.

The pope also spoke of structural changes needed in the global agricultural economy, but he didn't get into particulars.

Those finer points, however, were examined in unusual detail in a little-noticed briefing paper produced by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

The document offered the Vatican's take on the mechanisms behind the food crisis headlines. On one of the most hotly debated issues today, it came down squarely against developing biofuels from food crops at a time of global hunger.

The document made several important points:

-- The current food crisis began in 2005, it said, and is extraordinary because the price increases have affected almost all agricultural products, have hit many countries and have endured over a long stretch of time.

-- The text identified circumstantial causes of the food crisis: bad weather in many cereal-producing countries, the rise in energy prices that make production and transportation more costly, and speculation by commodity investors who have bought low and sold high.

Some exporting countries, including Brazil, China and India, have begun stockpiling food and keeping it off the market, apprehensive that they will not be able to satisfy domestic needs. That practice has also helped drive up prices, the document said.

-- It also examined the structural causes of the crisis, and here things get a bit more complicated. The paper pointed to one important shift in developing countries: a lower demand for cereals and a higher demand for protein-rich foods. That has led to more land used to produce animal feed, and less for foods used in direct human consumption.

It said long-standing subsidies to agricultural producers in richer countries have artificially kept down the international price of food products and thus discouraged farming in poorer countries. The result has been large-scale abandonment of local agriculture and increasing urbanization. Today, most poor countries are net importers of food, making them highly vulnerable as prices continue to rise.

-- The effects of the food crisis are not equal: The weakest suffer the most, especially children and the urban poor. The document cited U.N. statistics showing that for every 1 percent increase in food prices, 16 million more people fall into "food insecurity." The way things are going, the number of chronically hungry in the world could rise to 1.2 billion by 2015.

-- The document called for reconsideration of the rush to biofuel development, at least during the current crisis. Governments are called to protect the right to nourishment, and it is "unthinkable" for them to diminish the quantity of food products in favor of nonessential energy needs, it said.

Moreover, it said, the "hijacking" of agricultural land for production of biofuel crops was being subsidized by governments, which represents an interference with the correct functioning of the global food market.

-- Emergency food aid is a necessary short-term measure, it said. But such aid, if continued for long periods of time, can actually aggravate the root problems of the food crisis by weakening local agricultural markets and the food autonomy of beneficiary countries.

-- On the other hand, the current boom in food prices could turn out to be an opportunity for agricultural growth in poorer countries, as long as farmers have the essentials: land, seed, fertilizer, water and access to markets.

While the food crisis seems to have crept up on much of the world, the Vatican has been warning about the hunger problem and market imbalances for years.

In a 1998 document on land reform, for example, the justice and peace council said the trend toward large landholding was strangling the future of local farming in developing countries.

When introducing their comments on the food crisis, the pope and Vatican offices consistently quote the words of Christ: "For I was hungry and you gave me food."

Today, the Vatican is saying that basic task has assumed new dimensions that make it more complex, but far from impossible.

Source:CNS

Pope Benedict XVI will not hold private meetings with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Vatican City, Jun. 2, 2008 (vaticans.org) - Pope Benedict XVI will not hold private meetings with any of the heads of state who are in Rome this week for a meeting of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), informed sources at the Vatican report.

By avoiding all meetings with visiting world leaders, the Vatican could sidestep diplomatic pressure for a papal audience with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian government has confirmed that Iran’s ambassador to the Holy See, Mohammad Javad Faridzadeh, had requested a papal audience for Ahmadinejad. For several days before that formal request, Iranian diplomats had been energetic in suggesting that Ahmadinejad would like to speak with the Pontiff.

In the past, visiting heads of state have arranged courtesy visits with the Pontiff while attending other events in Rome. But the heavy international pressure on Iran made it difficult to arrange such a meeting for Ahmadinejad without suggesting Vatican support for the . Iran has repeatedly sought to enlist Vatican support, in its bid to resist pressures from US.

Several other government leaders will be in Rome for this week's FAO meeting. Last week the Argentine government announced that President Cristina Kirchner will meet with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, rather than with the Pontiff. Kirchner's government has been seriously at odds with the Catholic hierarchy in Argentina, so in her case, too, a papal audience could have involved political complications.

Source:CWNews.com

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