Pope and Chevez

From the Vheadline:

Instead, Pope Benedict XVI, increasingly wary of foreign leaders using meetings at the Vatican for political purposes, gave Hugo Chavez, the aggressively populist left-wing leader, a stern lecture on the need to respect religious freedom in a nation where 96% of the population is Roman Catholic.

Senor Chavez, who arrives in London this weekend, last year described the Church as a “tumour” and denounced Venezuela’s bishops as out-of-touch, elitist “devils in cassocks."

The Vatican noted dryly that during the 35-minute audience Senor Chavez ... who faces elections in December ... had “briefed the Holy Father on projects for social change under way in his country."