Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2003 / 22:00 pm
A resolution in the Senate to award Pope John Paul II the Presidential Medal of Freedom passed without a single objection on Wednesday evening.
Resolution 13, urging the Congress to present Pope John Paul with the Presidential Medal was presented Oct. 28, based on the Pope’s experience of “the brutishness of a godless totalitarian regime”, his meeting with President Ronald Reagan in 1987.
It also cited his “public and private diplomacy and the power of moral suasion to encourage world leaders to respect the inalienable rights of the human person” and his lifelong devotion “to the amelioration of the human cost of terror and oppression through … the development of a vibrant public moral culture.”
The resolution also resolves to urge the president to present the medal to the Pope “in recognition of the pontiff’s “significant, enduring, and historic contributions to the causes of freedom, human dignity, and peace and to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of His Holiness' inauguration of his ministry as Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pastor of the Catholic Church.”
The resolution passed unanimously.