With a new president now working in The Oval, commentators have started looking at how he will get along with the Vatican — and vice versa.

From CNS:

The Vatican has struck a positive tone as it opens relations with the administration of President Barack Obama, emphasizing hopes for cooperation on issues of peace and social justice, and — for now — downplaying differences on moral questions like abortion.

Pope Benedict XVI sent an Inauguration Day telegram congratulating the new president and supporting Obama’s resolve to “promote understanding, cooperation and peace among the nations.”

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, compared the swearing-in of the first African-American president to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and said it ushered in a new era of expectation and participation.

But beyond these optimistic public declarations, what are the Vatican’s top concerns at the start of the Obama term? What are its highest hopes and its deepest worries?

In interviews over recent weeks, Vatican officials said their expectations were highest on international questions of war and peace — most specifically, the Israeli-Palestinian war, which a Vatican official once termed “the mother of all conflicts.”

What is expected of the Obama administration, they said, is a decisive initiative to restart the peace process and move it toward a definitive solution, not a one-shot attempt but a “consistent commitment” to lead Israelis and Palestinians to the realization that a settlement is in their own best interests.

Vatican diplomats were disappointed at the Bush administration’s peace-promoting efforts in the Holy Land. They said those efforts came late and that the most promising initiative — the peace conference in Annapolis, Md., in late 2007 — was not followed up with diplomatic pressure.

While no one expects Obama to alter the United States’ fundamental support for Israel, Vatican officials said the new president begins his term with a certain amount of trust and sympathy among Arabs. That could be important, they said, because Arabs need to feel they have a world leader who takes their situation to heart.

All this could help change the dynamic of tension and mistrust throughout the Middle East, they said. Already, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s recent statement that the new administration would move quickly to diplomatically engage Syria and Iran was seen as a wise move by the Vatican.

The Vatican always was uncomfortable with the Bush administration’s self-proclaimed “war on terrorism,” even though officials gave qualified support to U.S. military action against terrorist enclaves in Afghanistan in 2001. Vatican sources said the hope is that the anti-terrorism effort under Obama will be carried out with two principles in mind: first, respect for legal rights, i.e., a rejection of torture; and, second, attention to the underlying causes of terrorism, including injustice and political frustration.

On economic issues, Vatican officials cited potential areas of agreement with Obama, including his concern for those on the margins of society. The hope, they said, is that the president’s stated concern for the poor in the United States will translate into a serious U.S. commitment to help alleviate global poverty. This was an important area of cooperation with the Bush administration, and the Vatican wants it to continue under Obama.

Asked about pro-life issues, on which Obama and the Catholic Church have clear differences, Vatican officials took a wait-and-see attitude. They said they shared the immediate concern of U.S. church leaders that Obama may restore federal funding for nongovernmental family planning programs that offer abortion outside the United States and lift the Bush administration’s limit on the funding of embryonic stem-cell research.

But on Inauguration Day, there was a strong hope at the Vatican that Obama, who is seen as an intelligent politician, would not pick unnecessary fights with the church. As a sign of just how closely the Vatican was watching the president’s words and deeds and how willing it was to accentuate the positive, one official who follows pro-life questions said he was encouraged that in his inauguration address Obama didn’t mention anything about these hot-button issues.

“He did mention parents who nurture their child. Now that’s a very pro-life statement,” he said.

Meanwhile, John Allen also notes how the Vatican is approaching the Obama presidency:

A year into Benedict XVI’s papacy, the early line was that the people most disappointed were the same ones most jazzed by his election. The late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus had voiced “palpable uneasiness,” pointing to what some saw as a lack of disciplinary muscle and a few ill-advised appointments. Over time, that uneasiness receded as Benedict took several steps more reassuring to the right, such as his lecture in Regensburg challenging Islamic radicalism and his revival of the Latin Mass.

Today, a new winter of discontent may be stirring, based on the Vatican’s strikingly upbeat approach to U.S. President Barack Obama.

The tone from Rome stands in obvious contrast to the ferment in some Catholic circles in the States, with the juxtaposition in Washington this week of the inauguration on Tuesday and the annual March for Life on Thursday offering a powerful illustration. (As one example, a contingent from the Ave Maria School of Law carried signs tweaking Obama’s campaign theme: “Yes we can … terminate abortion!”)

Benedict has now had three bites at the apple in terms of sending a message to the new president, with nary a mention of abortion or other “life issues” in the mix. So far, no prominent American Catholic has publicly objected, but that may be more an index of the void left by Neuhaus’ death than what’s actually on people’s minds. Anxiety is certainly out there; I recently had dinner with one American bishop identified with the pro-life cause, who wondered aloud: “What is it that Rome doesn’t get?”

The pope’s three communications with Obama so far have been:

* A Nov. 5 telegram of congratulations, itself a notable tip of the cap since Vatican protocol dictates that popes are not supposed to address heads of state until they take office;
* A Nov. 11 telephone call, as part of a round of calls from Obama to major world leaders;
* Another telegram on Jan. 20 marking the inauguration.

The first two messages were private, but a Vatican spokesperson passed on the gist. The pope called Obama’s election an “historic occasion,” and expressed desire that church and state collaborate to “build a world of peace, solidarity and justice.” The text of the Jan. 20 telegram was released, the heart of which was a fervorino to combat “poverty, hunger and violence,” and to promote “understanding, cooperation and peace among the nations.”

All this reinforces the basically positive vibe about Obama that has been emanating from other quarters in Rome. The day after the election, L’Osservatore Romano carried a front-page essay hailing Obama as “a choice that unites.” The missionary news agency “Asia News” ran a piece asserting that Obama would be good for America’s image around the world, a
nd also helpful for race relations in Europe. Vatican diplomats have repeatedly expressed optimism about what Obama’s presidency is likely to mean for the church’s foreign policy interests, especially in the Middle East and Africa. Whatever one makes of it, it’s a fact that the only people in the Vatican willing to take on Obama, at least so far, have been Americans.

Check out the NCR link for the rest.