Re: An open letter to President-elect Barack Obama

[Juan Manuel Escamilla González Aragón]

Este cabrón se cree que el Vaticano es un negocio.

2008/11/8 José Manuel Pérez Cárdenas <jmpe...@gmail.com>

By John L. Allen Jr.

For the record, nobody from the Obama transition team has solicited my
advice about relations with the Vatican, and I would frankly be
surprised if the question were yet on their radar screen. Others,
however, are already speculating about how things might shake out; on
Wednesday, for example, Reuters moved a story predicting a "tricky"
relationship between Rome and the Obama White House because of the
abortion issue. As a thought exercise, I decided to pen an open letter
to the president-elect about U.S.-Vatican ties over the next four
years.






Mr. President-elect:

This letter is a plea to make U.S.-Vatican relations under your
administration a priority, because of the enormous good in the world
that could be accomplished by exploiting natural areas of common
concern.

I'm aware that the stars may not seem especially well-aligned for such
collaboration. A small number of Catholic bishops in the United States
made statements during the campaign that favored your opponent, which
may have left a bitter aftertaste among some of your supporters and
advisors. It's also clear to everyone that, barring a dramatic change
of heart on your part, the White House and the Vatican will have deep
differences during your term over "life issues" such as abortion and
embryonic stem cell research.

I would urge you, however, not to allow those points to obscure four
basic political realities.

First, the Vatican and the United States need each other, whatever
their differences may be in a given historical moment. What the United
States is in the realm of "hard power," meaning coercive military and
economic might, the Vatican is in terms of "soft power," meaning the
capacity to stir action on the basis of ideas. Religion is a powerful
motivating force in human affairs, and the pope has the biggest bully
pulpit of any religious leader. It's simply bad for everyone if these
two forces are not on good speaking terms.

Second, it's smart politics for you not to neglect the Vatican. As you
know better than anyone, in some ways your reelection campaign in 2012
has already begun. You won the Catholic vote overall this time, but
narrowly lost white Catholics; working cooperatively and respectfully
with the Vatican could help you and your party with that group.

Third, the Vatican has a centuries-old diplomatic tradition of dealing
with governments that, in one way or another, don't follow the
church's line on certain matters. Despite those disagreements, Vatican
diplomacy typically strives to keep lines of communication open and to
seek common ground. In other words, they'll want to do business with
you where they can.

Fourth, the Vatican is eager for good relations with the United States
in particular, regardless of which party happens to be in power. The
Vatican deeply admires the robust religiosity of America, in contrast
with the pervasive secularism of much of Europe. The Vatican also
believes that the United States is its most natural ally in promoting
religious freedom and human dignity around the world.

The potential for collaboration is very real, because there are
numerous areas where your policy positions dovetail with the social
teaching of the Catholic church and the diplomatic interests of the
Vatican. Among the most obvious examples are immigration, economic
justice, peace, and environmental protection. In a statement this week
congratulating you, Vatican spokesperson Fr. Federico Lombardi also
expressed the Vatican's desire to work together on Iraq, the Holy
Land, Christian minorities in the Middle East and Asia, and the fight
against poverty and social inequality.

In each area, you will find a clear track record of teaching from
recent popes and a strong determination on the part of the Vatican's
diplomatic apparatus to move the ball. In fact, many of these topics
represent areas in which the Vatican was at odds with the Bush
administration and has longed for new American leadership.

Pope Benedict XVI himself has clearly opened the door to a positive
working relationship.

The pope sent a telegram on Wednesday calling your election "a
historic occasion," and offering his prayer that God will "support you
and the American people, so that through the good will of all, a world
of peace, solidarity and justice can be built." Lombardi likewise
expressed hope that you "will be able to match the expectations and
the hopes directed towards the new president, effectively serving
justice and rights, finding the best ways to promote peace in the
world, favoring the growth and dignity of persons with respect for
essential human and spiritual values."

You'll notice that neither the pope nor his spokesperson explicitly
mentioned abortion or other areas of disagreement, and certainly their
tone suggests that concern for the "life issues" will not exclude
cooperation in other areas. On the contrary, the Vatican seems to be
doing everything it can to invite it.

May I suggest one more possibility for U.S.-Vatican partnership? I
believe there is a historic opportunity for your administration and
the Holy See to work together to move the international community, at
long last, toward serious engagement on behalf of peace and
development in Africa.

You are a hero to much of Africa, giving you a degree of political
capital on the continent that no other Western leader could rival. At
the same time, 2009 is shaping up as a "Year of Africa" in global
Catholicism. Over the next 12 months, Pope Benedict XVI will visit
Cameroon and Angola; the African bishops will hold their plenary
assembly in Rome; and bishops from all over the world will converge on
Rome for a "Synod for Africa." All this suggests the possibility of
synergy between the world's most important political and spiritual
leaders -- i.e., you and the pope -- to promote peace and development
for Africa, where the world's most impoverished and abandoned people
are today found.

If you're interested in forging such a partnership, the first
important choice to make is who to send to the Vatican as your
ambassador. Ideally, you will turn to someone known to have your ear,
who will have real political influence in your administration, and who
also knows the Catholic world. What you're looking for, in other
words, is a Democratic equivalent of James Nicholson, President Bush's
first Vatican ambassador. Nicholson had served as the chair of the
Republican National Committee, and helped to steer the party's
outreach to Catholic voters. Bush sent a clear signal with that
nomination that he was interested in the Vatican, and this is one case
where it would behoove you to follow his lead.

Finally, one last piece of unsolicited advice: Mr. President-Elect,
whatever else you do, please try to avoid repeating the mistakes of
the last Democratic administration with regard to the Vatican.

In his memoirs, former Vatican Ambassador Raymond Flynn tells a
depressing story from 1994 illustrating what I mean. During the lead-
up to the U.N. conference on population in Cairo in 1994, Pope John
Paul II called Flynn to the Vatican on a Saturday morning to
personally request a telephone conversation with President Clinton.
Flynn relayed the request urgently to the White House that afternoon,
and got no response. He called again on Sunday and on Monday, both
times with no results. Frustrated, Flynn then got on a plane to
Washington on Tuesday. He cooled his heels outside the president's
office that night and most of Wednesday. Finally, he was admitted to
the White House's pre-Cairo war room, where he was told by Assistant
Secretary of State Timothy Wirth that "nobody is getting a chance to
lobby the president on this one." Dumbfounded, Flynn explained that
the Bishop of Rome is not a lobbyist, and that it would be seen as a
profound act of disrespect if the president wouldn't even get on the
phone. After almost a week, Clinton finally agreed to take the pope's
call.

The episode was symptomatic of a basic disinterest within the Clinton
team about the Vatican, which at times shaded off into hostility. The
result was that the U.S.-Vatican relationship during the Clinton years
was more often defined by predictable differences than by imaginative
areas of common purpose.

For what it's worth, Mr. President-Elect, my advice is to get on the
phone if the pope calls. Better yet, initiate the conversation
yourself. You might be surprised about where it goes.

John L. Allen Jr.

[Sergio Rubén Maldonado]

Seguro que la cooperación con cualquier país es importante. Pero creo que como lo plantea este ñor, parecen instrucciones de abuelita diciéndo al nieto cómo comportarse con una señora mayor de 2000 años. Etc.

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