Pope John Paul, who threw the weight of the Catholic Church against the war in Iraq, meets George W. Bush on Friday in an audience some in the Vatican (news - web sites) hope will show the U.S. president how right the pontiff was.
It will be their first face-to-face talk since the pope failed to convince Bush not to invade Iraq and the atmosphere is likely to be very different from their last meeting two years ago.
Bush, who will be in Rome for 36 hours to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the city's liberation in World War II, is due to see the ailing 84-year-old pontiff for about an hour in his private study in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.
John Paul arguably did more than any other world leader to try to stop the Iraq war, which eventually began in March, 2003. He sent top envoys to both Bush and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and made many public appeals for a diplomatic agreement.
"It's a good thing that he is coming because the pope has to tell him a few things," Cardinal Pio Laghi said in an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Laghi was the envoy whom the pope sent to Bush before the war started and who told a Washington news conference that any conflict without United Nations approval would be illegal.
He told the paper he hoped Bush would now realize "just how wise" the pope's warning about the war was.
PRISONER ABUSE
On top of their disapproval of the war itself, Vatican officials have been upset by the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers, which has inflamed the Arab world and embarrassed Washington.
"I love America but I could never have imagined that this kind of folly was possible," Laghi said.
Last week the pope publicly condemned torture as an intolerable affront to human dignity.
But the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, James Nicholson, played down the likelihood of any conflict when the pope meets Bush. "I think they will have a very cordial meeting," he told Reuters.
"The pope respects the president and his value system a great deal. I think they will have a good discussion about Iraq and the president will have a chance to tell the Holy Father about the situation and plans for the transfer of governance and sovereignty," he said.
Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican's foreign minister, told an Italian newspaper that the pope would use the Bush visit to remind America of its special role on the world stage.
"The United States today has a primary role in international affairs so one expects from them a commitment that lives up to those moral values that belong to the most glorious pages of their history and to their constitution," he said.
The pope and Bush agree on some things -- they both oppose abortion and homosexual marriage.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who is Catholic, has vowed to champion abortion rights if elected, a stand that has led some U.S. church leaders to say he should be denied communion.