Vatican Confirms: Pelosi will meet with Pope Benedict

The Vatican has confirmed that US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic lawmaker who has been an outspoken defender of unrestricted legal abortion, will meet with Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday after the Pontiff's regular weekly public audience. Pelosi, who is traveling in Italy this week, provoked the ire of Church leaders last August when, during the American political campaign, she claimed that the Church has not always opposed legal abortion. After the Speaker told a nationwide television audience that Catholic theologians have been divided on that issue, Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco, her home town, said that he would like to meet with her to discuss the issue.