Pope John Paul II granted an audience to Austria's controversial far-right leader Joerg Haider amid protests by Rome students Saturday, hours before he was to be officially given a Christmas tree from Haider's home region Carinthia.
The Vatican's number two, Cardinal Angelo Sodano defended the meeting. "People always deserve respect," he said.
"We must make a difference between an error and the one who errs," Sodano said in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica.
Egon Kapellari, bishop of the Austrian town of Gurk and a member of the 250-strong delegation that will present the heavily guarded tree, defended the ceremony. "The tree is a religious, not a political, symbol," he said.
Haider's visit was clouded by a diplomatic spat over Italy's immigration policies and protests at the pope's decision to receive him.
Haider, who is governor of the southern Austrian state, had said Wednesday that Rome was "overly generous" toward illegal immigrants.
That drew a protest from Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, who described the remarks as "unacceptable".
Kapellari said that the situation in Italy before next spring's elections and the situation in Austria were playing a role in the controversy over Haider's visit.
The Vatican accepted the offer of a Christmas tree in 1997, when Haider was not governor there. Trees put up in Saint Peter's Square during the Christmas season are traditionally provided by different world regions.
The visit has provoked protests by political figures, the Jewish community, associations of World War II partisan fighters against Nazism and wartime deportees.
Student and left-wing demonstrators on Saturday called the visit "a provocation and an offense to the city's history."
Protestors marching in Rome early Saturday said they would ask the pope to replace the Carinthian conifer with an "anti-Fascist Christmas" tree.
Far-right militants were due to organize a sit-in in support of the Austrian politician Saturday afternoon.
Jewish-owned businesses plan to turn off the lights in their stores in protest at his visit at 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT).
But the Vatican has defended the pope's decision to grant Haider an audience, arguing that the Holy See is open to everyone.
The pope also released a document condemning racism and xenophobia but the Vatican insisted its timing was coincidental to the visit.
Haider has long been criticized for remarks sympathetic to Hitler's Waffen SS and his reference to Nazi concentration camps as "punishment camps".
His Freedom Party is the junior ally in a coalition government with the conservative People's Party of Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel -- VATICAN CITY (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
