The President and the Pope

[Newsom Michael]

There is a difference between asking the Pope to support broad policy
goals and asking the Pope to support a particular presidential
initiative.  My sense of the reports is that Bush's remarks tended
toward the second position, not the first.

-----Original Message-----
From: Volokh, Eugene [mailto:VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu] 
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 11:32 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: The President and the Pope

A question:  Say that in the 1960s, the President told a group of white
Protestant leaders that they needed to tell their congregations to take
seriously Christ's teachings of human dignity, and to renounce racism
and support civil rights.  Or say that in 2004 in an alternate universe,
President Gore told religious groups that they should tell their
congregations about the importance of protecting God's creationagainst
environmental disaster.  Constitutional problem?

Eugene