President Obama hosted a 45-minute roundtable with members of the Catholic media at the White House Thursday during which he expressed his ongoing struggle with his Christian faith and "concern for gays and lesbians," according to the
Advocate.
In an obvious effort to reach out to Catholics prior to his meeting with Pope Benedict XVI scheduled during his trip to Italy for the Annual G8 summit (July 8-10), Obama said he's looking forward to talking to the pope about the Middle East, climate change and immigration. Yet other likely topics of discussion between the leaders could be the president's support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research, which upset the Roman Catholic Church's teachings.
The roundtable was left out from the White House schedule, but was nevertheless confirmed to
FOX News by a senior administration official. In attendance were America, Avvenire/Vatican Radio, Catholic News Service, Catholic Digest, Commonweal, National Catholic Reporter and the Washington Post.
About the President "wrestling" with his Christian faith and concern for the LGBT community, Dan Gilgoff, religion reporter for
U.S. News and World Report, posted the following remarks from Obama to the Catholic media:
"For the gay and lesbian community in this country, I think it's clear that they feel victimized in fairly powerful ways and they're often hurt by not just certain teachings of the Catholic Church, but the Christian faith generally. And as a Christian, I'm constantly wrestling with my faith and my solicitude and regard and concern for gays and lesbians."
