Stephen Harper Meets Pope Francis

This is the official picture everyone is featuring. It will not be suitable, I expect, for CPC campaign materials.

It seems obvious to me that Stephen Harper received the diplomatic cold shoulder in his recent visit to the Vatican.

When it comes to diplomacy, little things mean a lot. Harper got only ten minutes with the pope: “unusually brief.” Given the time taken for photo op, and the issue of translation, they must have barely had time to speak. Harper was hustled in and hustled out, the minimum that could be done short of the diplomatic scandal of standing him up.

And that photo op? It shows this perennially smiling pope scowling; while Harper's smile looks plastered on. If the pope's scowl were inadvertent, a momentary thing, there would presumably have been a second shot taken without it, and that would be the picture distributed. It seems that the pope's scowl was a consistent feature of the meeting, and reflects its tone.

This was no doubt because Harper was expected to be delivering the demand from the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the pope apologize for the Church's supposed mistreatment of Canadian native people, do it within one year, and do it on Canadian soil. Harper was in an awkward situation: if he did not do this, the opposition parties back home would make hay with the claim that he cared nothing for native people.

But, for the sake of Canadian domestic politics, it put the Vatican in a yet more awkward position. To say yes was unthinkable; to say no suggested a breach with Canada.