Rome — As I write, helicopters are noisily hovering overhead shuttling heads of state from Italy’s capital to the town of L’Aquila for the G-8 summit. Of all the meetings President Obama will have this week, perhaps the most interesting for him will be that with Pope Benedict XVI on Friday at the Vatican.

By the time he enters the pope’s apartments on Friday afternoon, the president will have had his fill of policy discussions and may be grateful for a meeting of a different kind with a leader who, like the president, enjoys discussions of history, philosophy, and the moral underpinnings of politics.

The pope usually meets with heads of state for anywhere from eleven minutes to a half an hour. That is not enough time to get into the particulars of policy, which the pope doesn’t do anyway. And it would be a waste of that time if the meeting were simply a checklist of what the U.S. is doing at home and in the world — that’s what the meeting with the secretary of state is for.

No, given the characters of these two men, it would be much more beneficial if their time together focused on even one of the over-arching themes of the common good: faith & reason (a favorite of the pope) or brotherhood or the spirit of gift (both highlighted in the pope’s just-released encyclical). For the pope, the particulars of policy on abortion, stem-cell research, the environment, and financial markets all stem from these greater themes. And President Obama, who has said that Catholic social justice has had a “profound influence” on him would no doubt be stimulated in his thinking about policy issues by considering some of these topics with the pope.

One of Pope Benedict’s strengths is his ability to say one or two things in a simple way that make you think. His talk in private conversation is never platitudinous but deeply engaged and reflective. It is the opposite of most political talk.

Reports said President Obama seemed tired in Russia, confusing basic facts and stumbling over names. If he was tired then, he will only be more so after three days of more politicians and promises here at the G-8 in Italy. A visit with the pope might re-invigorate the American leader by allowing him to reflect on larger themes and remember why he got involved in politics in the first place.

The pope outlined some of these major themes in his new encyclical, Charity in Truth, released Tuesday at the Vatican, just before the G-8 meeting. Below is just a sampling of some of the many topics covered in the 144-page document:

There will never be a perfect world — crisis is an opportunity President Obama has said that the Catholic tradition of social justice “has had a profound influence on him.” At the heart of Catholic idea of social justice is however the belief that this world will never be a perfect one.

We rightly work for peace and unity in this world, the pope says, because it is an “anticipation and prefiguration of the undivided city of God.” It is a religious notion — but, then, he is the pope — which puts in perspective the sometimes frustrating work of politics.

God’s love…gives us the courage to continue seeking and working for the benefit of all, even if this cannot be achieved immediately and if what we are able to achieve, alongside political authorities and those working in the field of economics, is always less than we might wish.

This belief does not negate a constant striving towards justice on earth, on the contrary, it is this vision which animates it — that God has given us our lives, this earth and the universe and how we conduct ourselves here is our response to that gift.

The Pope says, “The current crisis obliges us to re-plan our journey, to set ourselves new rules and to discover new forms of commitment, to build on positive experiences and to reject negative ones. The crisis thus become an opportunity for discernment, in which to shape a new vision for the future.”

Brotherhood The Pope in his new encyclical talks about brotherhood — a term that will be familiar to President Obama as it comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition and is often invoked in black churches.

Pope Benedict says, “As society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbours but does not make us brothers.”

Lack of brotherhood, according to the pope, is an even more important cause of underdevelopment than material causes: resources, ineffective policies, etc. The mindset that we are not all connected and responsible for each other is the first cause of inequality.

Further, “Human social relationships of friendship, solidarity and reciprocity can also be conducted within economic activity and not only outside it or ‘after’ it.”

In other words, a sense of real brotherhood makes good business sense too.

The gift

One of the duties of brotherhood, according to Benedict, is the idea of freely giving, what the pope calls “the spirit of gift.”

The great challenge before us, accentuated by the problems of development in this global era and made even more urgent by the economic and financial crisis, is to demonstrate, in thinking and behaviour, not only that traditional principles of social ethics like transparency, honesty and responsibility cannot be ignored or attenuated, but also that in commercial relationships the principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift as an expression of fraternity can and must find their place within normal economic activity.

Economic life, he says, “also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift.”

Charity as Americans tend to understand it means giving a percentage of your income to philanthropic causes. The pope suggests a different kind of charity, which he calls gift and gratuitousness, that does not offer any short-term economic benefit for the giver but by fostering a sense of community, makes long term economic sense for the common good.

Abortion and stem-cell research are related to development

Abortion and embryonic-stem-cell research are two of the “hot-button” issues that many hope will be discussed between the pope and President Obama. The pope, in his encyclical, looks at each issue in the larger framework of development saying, “Morally responsible openness to life represents a rich social and economic resource.”

The pope says abortion, in the perspective of social development, has the consequence of reducing economic resources.

The decline in births, falling at times beneath the so-called ‘replacement level’ also puts a strain on social welfare systems, increases their cost, eats into savings and hence the financial resources needed for investment, reduces the availability of qualified labourers, and narrows the “brain pool” upon which nations can draw for their needs.

Pope Benedict takes issue with those countries and NGO’s who spread an “anti-birth mentality” to other countries, “as if it were a form of cultural progress.”

For the pope, the social question “has become a radically anthropological question.”

Technology has led to indifference, the pope thinks, about what it means to be human.

“How can we be surprised by the indifference shown towards situations of human degradation, when such indifference extends even to our attitude towards what is and is not human?” he asks.

In vitro fertilization, embryo research, the possibility of manufacturing clones and human hybrids: all this is now emerging and being promoted in today’s highly disillusioned culture, which believes it has mastered every mystery, because the origin of life is now within our grasp.

— Delia Gallagher is a Vatican journalist based in Rome. She is the former CNN Faith and Values Correspondent.