Meeting Between Pope, Clinton Likely to Focus on World Justice

KINGSTON, Jamaica —  In preparing for the first encounter of “an old Pope and a young President,” the Vatican expects Thursday’s meeting in Denver between John Paul II and Bill Clinton to be a free-flowing exchange of ideas at which the pontiff will likely urge the President to take constructive advantage of post-Cold War opportunities to help build a more just world order.

The scheduled 45-minute conversation is expected to be wide-ranging, touching on both international trouble spots and social issues of mutual concern, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro said Tuesday.

“They’ll be talking about everything,” Navarro said. There’ll be no formal agenda and no surprises from the Vatican side, he said.

Bosnia, Somalia and the Middle East are on the Pope’s mind. So are international problems such as migration, the growing gap between a rich Northern Hemisphere and a poor south, the breakdown of social order, the erosion of moral standards and rising violence among young people in many societies. In Jamaica, as a case in point, the Pope’s visit shared front-page space Tuesday with a quadruple homicide that raised the number of gunshot murders on the island to more than 400 so far this year.

“The Holy Father stresses the ethical dimension of problems,” Navarro said.

John Paul has repeatedly called on leaders of the First World to profit from the end of superpower rivalry by building on shared Christian values to construct more moral and just societies with closer ties.

“The Pope doesn’t have two languages, one public and one private,” Navarro said. “He takes advantage of meetings with world leaders to convey to them the same moral principles that he is putting to the conscience of the crowds.”

There were enthusiastic crowds and rhythmic reggae aplenty Tuesday as the 73-year-old pontiff ricocheted through the hard-edged Jamaican capital with calls for fraternity and morality on an island where only 4% of 2.3-million people are Catholic but more than 60% are poor.

With temperatures in the 90s and the humidity also high, the Pope met publicly with clerics, members of Jamaica’s 105,000-member Catholic community and leaders of other religions. He made speeches at all three meetings. He also delivered a homily at an early evening Mass in the national soccer stadium, and he lifted some spirits.

“Sometimes you need to see the boss to get feelin’ good,” said Mary Ainsworth, principal of St. Jude’s primary school in Kingston, who attended the Pope’s meeting with local Catholics.

On an island where most people are Protestant and some are members of sects that see the Pope as a symbol of European exploitation and subjugation, the visit awakened some hostilities. Some fires were set along the route of the papal motorcade Monday, some billboards advertising the visit were defaced, and John Paul competed for audiences with the latest in a seemingly unending series of summer reggae festivals.

In his speeches Tuesday, John Paul sounded moral themes that he is apt to reassert at his public appearances at World Youth Day celebrations in Denver.

He told Jamaican priests that celibacy was an expression of God’s love that must be nourished by prayer and asceticism. He called on his priests to seek converts in the face of “forms of superstition and sectarian fundamentalism, forces which are antagonistic to the faith and devotion of Catholics.”

Addressing a loud and happy crowd at the stadium Mass, John Paul inveighed against common-law marriage and sex outside of marriage.

Jamaicans have known the evils of slavery, the Pope said, but must overcome its legacy.

“Apart from its exploitation of individuals, one of the greatest evils of slavery was its destruction of family bonds. Slavery stole men away from their wives; wives were left alone with the burden of raising children . . . the tragic fruits of this evil system are still present in attitudes of sexual irresponsibility,” he added.

John Paul flies to the Yucatan capital of Merida this morning before beginning his four-day visit to Denver.