Il Papa - Putin Meeting Helpful

A meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and Russian President Vladimir Putin next week will benefit Russia's small Catholic community, the pope's envoy to Moscow said on Vatican radio Saturday. He declined to say in a separate interview whether he expected Putin to invite Benedict to Moscow.

Benedict's talks with Putin at the Vatican on Tuesday will be the first meeting between the pope and the Russian leader. Putin twice met Pope John Paul II but issued no invitation to Moscow.

That meant that the late pope's dream of going to Moscow never overcame tensions between Catholic and Orthodox Christians following the fall of Soviet-bloc communism. The Russian Orthodox church suspects Catholics of looking for converts in its traditional territory, an accusation the Vatican denies. Long-running property disputes between the churches have also hurt relations between the two churches.

The meeting between Benedict and Putin “certainly will be a portent of good fruits in further relations between the Holy See and the Russian Federation, to the advantage as well of the Catholic Church in Russia,” Monsignor Antonio Mennini told Vatican Radio.

Putin's predecessors, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, had invited John Paul to Russia.

Mennini, who is the apostolic nuncio in Moscow, was asked in an interview published Saturday in the Catholic daily Avvenire if he thought Putin would hold talks at the Vatican without extending an invitation to Russia. The envoy sidestepped the question.

Tuesday's meeting “will certainly be a significant event” with ecumenical effects, the envoy told the daily published by the Italian bishops conference.

“In this sense, it seems clear that the priority isn't identifying with a visit by the Holy Father to Moscow, but with progress in dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox,” Mennini was quoted as saying.

Mennini told Vatican Radio that Putin and Benedict would speak in German.

“It was a courteous gesture by the president, who let us know that he was ready to speak directly in the Holy Father's mother tongue, which Putin knows very well,” Mennini said.


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