Apr. 16, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Over 10,000 people were on hand as President George W. Bush formally welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the US in a ceremony held in the Rose Garden outside the White House on April 16.
The crowd-- believed to be the largest ever assembled at the White House for such a ceremony-- joined in singing "Happy Birthday" to the Holy Father, who turned 81 today. After a formal ceremony that included an exchange of talks and several musical presentations, the crowd sang "Happy Birthday" again as the Pope and the President made their way to the Oval Office for a private discusion. [See the separate CWN headline story.]
In their speeches, both the Pope and the President alluded to the strength of religious belief in the US and the influence of natural law in the foundation of the American republic. Both men cited the Declaration of Independence, with its invocation of "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God."
President Bush, in his welcoming address, told the Pontiff that he had come to "a nation of prayer." He assured the Pope that "millions of Americans have been praying for your visit and millions will be praying with you this week."
America, Bush said, is a nation that "welcomes the role of faith in the public square," whose people "are open to your message of hope." He noted that the Pope has warned against the encroachment of militant secularism and collapse of clear moral principles, and assured him that American "reject this dictatorship of relativism."
The President drew applause from the crowd-- which included hundreds of Catholic political activists as well as White House aides and their guests-- when he spoke about the leadership of the Catholic Church in the defense of human life. Bush told the Pope: "In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred and that each of us is willed."
In his response, Pope Benedict said that he was coming to America "as a friend, a preacher of the Gospel and one with great respect for this vast pluralistic society." Speaking in fluent but heavily accented English, he underlined the importance of moral principles in a pluralist society. The Pontiff also drew hearty applause when he ended his talk with an emphatic: "God bless America!"
"From the dawn of the Republic, America's quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator," the Pope told the Rose Garden audience. He acknowledged that the battle to maintain moral principles is often difficult, requiring substantial sacrifices.
"In a word, freedom is ever new," the Pope said. "It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good." Quoting the words of America's first President, George Washington, in his farewell address, the Pope said that religion and morality are "indispensable supports" of a strong republic. "Democracy can only flourish," he continued, "as your founding fathers realized, when political leaders and those whom they represent are guided by truth and bring the wisdom born of firm moral principle to decisions affecting the life and future of the nation."
As he neared the conclusion of his remarks, Pope Benedict looked forward to his appearance at the UN headquarters in New York, where he will speak on Friday. He said that he hoped to "encourage the efforts under way to make that institution an ever more effective voice for the legitimate aspirations of all the world's peoples." Recalling the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he welcomed US participation in the effort to safeguard the fundamental rights of every human person.