Who paid for Sanders' trip to the Vatican? The campaign? nt

[MBS]

33. Obama was a sitting president at the time.

BIG difference.

As the article below (see link) explains, as a matter of policy, Pope Francis goes out of his way NOT to get involved with political candidates, only with sitting office-holders (Francis was bamboozled on the Kim Davis front by the former Vatican ambassador to the US- that ambassador was recently fired (or allowed to "retire&quot by Pope Francis). If anything, the media and political buzz surrounding Sanders' visit insured that the pope would be sure to be "too busy preparing for his trip to Greece" to visit the conference.

Further, Bernie was invited (sort of - again, see the article) to an academic conference, never for a papal audience; and even his conference invitation came via Sanders advisor (and conference speaker) Jeffrey Sachs, Sachs' own communications person and one of the conference organizers (but not the other organizer, who was in fact incensed by the insertion of electoral politics and media buzz into this academic conference).

Also (as we now know), during their Vatican visit(s), Obama (and his diplomatic team, including Sec. Kerry) were conducting bona fide diplomatic business at the Vatican. Among other issues, the Vatican was acting as a key, discrete mediator in engineering the delicate, initially secret discussions between US and Cuba.

The best reporting on the history of the Sanders visit to that conference is here: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/what-does-sanders-invitation-say-about-vatican-and-sanders
See also the online comment by religion reporter Peter Steinfels (posted April 14, 3:30 pm).

Great that Bernie admires Pope Francis, who is worthy of admiration; and good that the problems of poor people got some publicity because of the extra media buzz . But not good IMO that Bernie exploited this invitation (and, I suspect, also encouraged this invitation, through Sachs) for campaign purposes; and not appropriate IMO for campaign funds to be used for this trip (except for the fact that use of those funds is at least an honest acknowledgement of the trip's purpose).