France’s Macron and Pope Francis hold unusually long meeting

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 French President Emmanuel Macron meets Pope Francis in the Vatican on June 26, 2018.
French President Emmanuel Macron meets Pope Francis in the Vatican on June 26, 2018.

French President Emmanuel Macron, accused at home of straining France’s secular foundations by seeking to mend ties with the Catholic Church, had an unusually long and cordial meeting with Pope Francis on Tuesday.

They spoke for nearly an hour in the official papal library in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, about twice as long as Francis usually spends with heads of state or government.

A Vatican statement said the two discussed “protection of the environment, migration, and multilateral commitment to conflict prevention and resolution, especially in relation to disarmament”.

They also spoke about prospects for resolving conflicts in the Middle East and Africa and the future of Europe, it said.

At the end of the private part of the audience, Macron gave Francis a rare copy of Goerges Bernanos 1936 book “Diary of a Country Priest”.

“I’ve read this book many times and it has done me good. It is a book that I have always loved very much,” the pope told Macron, 40, who was accompanied in the public parts of the meeting by his wife Brigitte, 65.

Francis gave Macron a medallion depicting Martin of Tours, a 4th century saint who is depicted cutting his cloak in half to give it to a beggar in winter.

“This means the vocation of those who govern is to help the poor. We are all poor,” Francis told Macron as he was giving him the medallion.

As Macron left the library, he and Francis exchanged a two-cheek kiss, another very usually gesture between a pope and a visiting head of state.

The Vatican was expected to issue a statement later on the themes discussed during the private talks.

Two months ago, Macron called for stronger ties between the state and the Catholic Church, a move critics said blurred a line that has kept French government free of religious intervention for generations.

The issue is particularly sensitive in historically Catholic France, where matters of faith and state were separated by law in 1905 and which is now home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities.

France’s guiding principles also hold that religious observance is a private matter, for all faiths.

Macron was raised in a non-religious family and was baptized a Roman Catholic at his own request when he was 12.

On Tuesday afternoon Macron was due to be installed as the “First and Only Honorary Canon” of the Rome Basilica of St John’s in Lateran, which is the pope’s cathedral in his capacity as bishop of Rome.

Under a tradition that began in the 15th century when France was a monarchy, French leaders are automatically given the title.

(REUTERS)

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19 responses to “France’s Macron and Pope Francis hold unusually long meeting”

    1. Hind Abyad Avatar

      Almost All West Bank Land Deals for Illegal Settlements Forged, Investigation Finds

      From straw men to cash-stuffed suitcases, new investigation
      reveals that 14 out 15 acquisitions by right wing firm of West Bank
      lands from Palestinians were forged.’

      https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-probe-almost-all-palestinian-land-deals-for-illegal-outposts-forged-1.5398548

      1. Judea is not Orabistinian Land

        1. Hind Abyad Avatar

          It’s origine is from Orabistan

          “The Sabaeans or Sabeans (Sabaean: ????????????, S¹Bʾ; Arabic: ٱلسَّبَئِيُّوْن‎, as-Sabaʾiyyūn; Hebrew: שבא‬) were an ancient people speaking Sabaean, an Old South Arabian language, and living in the southern Arabian Peninsula.
          The kingdom of Sabaʾ (Arabic: سَـبَـأ‎) has been identified with the biblical land of Sheba.
          The view that the biblical kingdom of Sheba was the ancient Semitic civilization of Saba in Southern Arabia is controversial: Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman write that “the Sabaean kingdom began to flourish only from the eighth century BC onward” and that the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is “an anachronistic seventh-century set piece meant to legitimize the participation of Judah in the lucrative Arabian trade.”

          1. ???????????? nice, thank You

        2. Hind Abyad Avatar

          Sabaeans are mentioned in the biblical books of Job, Joel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah.

          The Book of Job mentions them as having slayed Job’s livestock and servants. In Isaiah they are described as “tall of stature”

          1. Also Nabateans are in History. Anyone is respected, only lie and hate are not respected

          1. Trade and Communication Routes are Wonderful. Jews were living in Spain, Eurape, Magrib, Saudia, Teiman (Yemen) so what, now it is all Great Israel?

          2. Hind Abyad Avatar

            Understanding the Collective Unconscious. The collective unconscious is a concept originally defined by psychoanalyst Carl Jung and is sometimes called the objective psyche. It refers to the idea that a segment of the deepest unconscious mind is genetically inherited and is not shaped by personal experience.

          3. Equalstanding is Collective InFRmation. InFRmation is Broken Monotony or more simply Any or in General (positive) Violation. Wisdom Is Not a Stupid Acquisition of Knowledge but Sharing and Recoil

          4. Hind Abyad Avatar

            You’re the embodiment of stupidity

          5. i capable control my stupidity, you can not control your own stupidity, infosharmuta

          6. Dirty Dumbyad Primitive Brain Occupation

          7. Hind Abyad Avatar

            blocked..too boring .

          8. unblock your primitive brain from hate to love to others, infosharmuta

          9. Hindler will NEVER unblock her brain from the eternal Jew hater status, just peek in @Abyadhind if you dare.

  1. “Absolute Yahoo Lie. I watch it and speak French!”, says the wannabe Canadian ????
    France’s ‘yellow vests’ and the Russian trolls that encourage them.
    A small group of “yellow vest” (“gilets jaunes”) demonstrators accosted Alain Finkielkraut during Saturday’s protests in the French capital.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c4b0b476ef4135fb39906b33a53bd5fa828c5d7e7b73b305ffc3deab560b27fc.jpg
    They shouted: “Go back to Tel Aviv!”, “We are France!”, and “Zionist!”.
    Paris prosecutors on Sunday announced an investigation over the anti-Jewish insults against Finkielkraut on the sidelines of a yellow vest demonstration in Paris.
    A senior member of the “yellow vest” movement said on Sunday he strongly denounced the remarks made to Finkielkraut.

    Finkielkraut, the son of a Polish Auschwitz survivor and a vocal supporter of Israel, is a prominent intellectual and member of the Académie Française, who frequently appears on talk shows.
    https://youtu.be/F5STHfe0wgg
    He had shown sympathy for the “yellow vests” movement but also criticised it in a recent interview with Le Figaro newspaper. (dw,euronews)
    https://youtu.be/3aFPjpxRZrU
    https://twitter.com/alfonslopeztena/status/1096867429060354048
    While most French people initially supported the “yellow vests”, a poll last week indicated for the first time since the movement began that the majority – 58% – now want to see an end to the protests.

    France is struggling to deal with an uptick in anti-Semitic acts. Some blame the yellow vest movement for fueling hate crime against Europe’s largest community. Elizabeth Bryant reports from Saint-Geneviève-des-Bois. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c088ebdbafbe9254348314df2490cc6e5353f9518c430246bceb93bc1f71d510.jpg
    As Mauricette Rouffignat stood before yet another desecrated Jewish site on a recent sunny morning, it seemed like a playback to darker days. “I experienced World War II and all the suffering, the Jews who were deported,” said 84-year-old Roussignat, who is not Jewish, but a resident of Saint-Geneviève-des-Bois, a quiet town on the outskirts of Paris. “We cannot remain unresponsive to these events, to this growing racism and insensitivity.”

    A surge in anti-Semitism in Europe has made many Jews consider leaving, according to an EU survey. Anti-Semitism has risen particularly in France, with Jewish people in Germany reporting the highest level of harassment.
    Some 90 percent of European Jews believe anti-Semitism has grown stronger — particularly in France — in recent years, according to a European Union survey published on Monday.

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