The balance between faith and politics is fragile, and Asia Times writer Spengler gives an interesting perspective in today’s paper. It is worth reading. A link is provided following this excerpt:
It is not only faith, but the temerity to act upon faith, that the pope and the president have in common. In the past I have characterized Benedict’s stance as, “I have a mustard seed, and I’m not afraid to use it.” (See Ratzinger’s mustard seed Asia Times Online, April 5, 2005.) Despite his failings, Bush is a kindred spirit. That is what horrifies their respective critics within the Catholic Church and the American government, who portray the president and the pope as destroyers of civilizational peace. The charge is spurious because there was no civilization peace to destroy, but like many calumnies, it contains an element of truth.
Never before did a pope descend to the Vatican gardens to greet a national leader as Benedict did for Bush, returning the unprecedented deference that the president showed in meeting the pope’s plane at Andrews Air Force Base in April. More than mutual courtesy is at work here; the two men evince a natural affinity and mutual sympathy. Prelates in the Vatican’s permanent bureaucracy fumed at the warmth with which Bush was received, the Italian daily La Repubblica noted June 12, given that the US president “is very distant from papal exhortations condemning war”, the Iraq war in particular.
Read more at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JF17Ak01.html