Bill Clinton: “Good afternoon. It was a great pleasure and a great honor for me to be able to spend some time with the Holy Father. We…”

“Good afternoon. It was a great pleasure and a great honor for me to be able to spend some time with the Holy Father. We had a cordial and productive meeting, and I believe we laid the basis for a productive and constructive relationship in the future. We shared many values and perspectives: a commitment to today's young people in the United States and throughout the world; a belief in work and family and the importance of pursuing policies that support them; a commitment to correcting the social problems that give rise to so many problems for our people in this country, violence, drugs, and other things; and a recognition that we need in this Nation and throughout the world both more individual responsibility and more community action. We talked about a wide range of international problems. We discussed Bosnia at length, as you might imagine. We talked about the peacekeeping mission in Somalia. We talked about the efforts of nations working together through the United Nations to reduce violence and support human rights and democracy throughout the world, in Cambodia, for example, and other places. We talked about the former Soviet Union and conditions in many countries. We talked about the Holy Father's native Poland and the progress that they are making there. We talked about Haiti and what the United States has tried to do there to restore democracy and freedom.…”