(Times Online) - The Pope has rejected an invitation to address the European Parliament, amid Vatican alarm at what is seen as a drift towards militant secularism.
A letter from the Vatican said that he was declining the request to speak to MEPs owing to other commitments and his age, The Times has learnt. The rejection came soon after the Pope agreed to spend his 81st birthday visiting President Bush and as his tour of Australia was ending. The Parliament, which wanted the Pope to be principal Christian guest in its Year of Intercultural Dialogue, may resort to a less well-known Eastern Orthodox leader.
The Vatican has favoured the White House as a reward for Mr Bush’s acclamation of faith in God and help for antiabortion causes.
At a Mass held at a racecourse in Sydney yesterday the Pope, who has been celebrating Catholic World Youth Day, told 400,000 worshippers that in many societies, “side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, a quiet sense of despair”....
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THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Pope Benedict XVI just recently gave the European Parliament what I can only call "the velvet backhand." By that I mean the polite and gentle way a pope completely snubs an institution. I can hardly blame him really. The European Parliament had this coming for quite some time...
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