URGENT - Bush, pope discuss treatment Muslim majority's treatment of Christians in Iraq
by JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
ROME (AP) - President Bush said Saturday that and he and Pope Benedict XVI discussed the pontiff's deep worries that Christians in Iraq would not be embraced by the Muslim majority.
''We didn't talk about just war,'' Bush said in a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi during a swing through Europe.
''He was concerned that the society that was evolving would not tolerate the Christian religion. ... He's worrisome about the Christians inside Iraq being mistreated by the Muslim majority.''
Bush met with the prime minister several hours after seeing the pope. The two men, meeting each other for the first time, appeared intent to look beyond their differences in Iraq. The pope, in his Easter message, had denounced the ''continual slaughter'' in Iraq and said that ''nothing positive'' is happening.
Bush said his meeting with the pope, in which the president stressed his record in fighting AIDS and supporting other humanitarian causes, was a ''moving experience.''
''I was talking to a very smart, loving man,'' Bush said.
On an issue back home, Bush said his decision to replace Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reflected the Democratic-led Congress' opposition to the war in Iraq.
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and
Bush visits Pope: Middle East, Africa and religious freedom
During the “cordial talks”, Benedict XVI and the American leader analysed the “worrying situation in Iraq”, but in a more general sense issues regarding the entire Middle East and the “critical conditions in which the Christian communities find themselves”. The two leaders “also examined contemporary moral and religious issues”, among them human rights and religious freedom
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Pertinent Links:
1) URGENT - Bush, pope discuss treatment Muslim majority's treatment of Christians in Iraq
2) Bush visits Pope: Middle East, Africa and religious freedom
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