{"id":347,"date":"2007-12-06T16:34:04","date_gmt":"2007-12-06T16:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi.php"},"modified":"2007-12-06T16:34:04","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T16:34:04","slug":"dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi","title":{"rendered":"Dalai Lama Starts Italian Visit; No Papal Meeting Planned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press<\/strong><br \/>\nMilan, Italy &#8211; The Dalai Lama opened a 10-day visit to Italy on Thursday with few official meetings on his schedule and no plans by the Vatican for a papal audience for the Tibetan spiritual leader, despite earlier reports there would be one.<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry I won&#8217;t meet him,&#8221; the Italian news agency quoted the Dalai Lama as saying about Pope Benedict XVI.<br \/>\n&#8220;Given that I&#8217;m here, I would like to have seen him.&#8221;<br \/>\nItalian news agencies, without identifying their sources, had reported that Benedict planned to meet with him on Dec. 13, but the Vatican later said there were no such plans.<br \/>\nAsked by Sky Italia TV if his visit appeared to be causing embarrassment for some, the Dalai Lama insisted his visit was not political. &#8220;I&#8217;m only a visitor,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nBenedict met with the Dalai Lama last year. His present visit to Italy comes as the Vatican has stepped up efforts to improve church relations with China and an audience would clearly anger Beijing.<br \/>\nThe Dalai Lama&#8217;s recent meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President George W. Bush drew strong rebukes from Beijing, which claims he wants to split Tibet from China. The Dalai Lama insists he only seeks autonomy for Tibet, which China has occupied since 1951.<br \/>\nChinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday at a regular news briefing in Beijing: &#8220;Wherever the Dalai Lama goes, or in what name, the issue is not personal or religious. He represents a clique trying to split the country and seeking Tibetan independence, to which the Chinese government and people are firmly opposed.&#8221;<br \/>\nAmong his activities in Milan are a meeting with the president of the Lombardy region and a ceremony for Nobel Peace Prize winners hosted by the Milan mayor. He is due in Rome next week.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press Milan, Italy &#8211; The Dalai Lama opened a 10-day visit to Italy on Thursday with few official meetings on his schedule and no plans by the Vatican for a papal audience for the Tibetan spiritual leader, despite earlier reports there would be one. &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry I won&#8217;t meet him,&#8221; the Italian news agency&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dalai Lama Starts Italian Visit; No Papal Meeting Planned<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dalai Lama Starts Italian Visit; No Papal Meeting Planned\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Milan, Italy &#8211; The Dalai Lama opened a 10-day visit to Italy on Thursday with few official meetings on his schedule and no plans by the Vatican for a papal audience for the Tibetan spiritual leader, despite earlier reports there would be one. &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry I won&#8217;t meet him,&#8221; the Italian news agency&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-06T16:34:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dalai Lama Starts Italian Visit; No Papal Meeting Planned","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dalai Lama Starts Italian Visit; No Papal Meeting Planned","og_description":"Associated Press Milan, Italy &#8211; The Dalai Lama opened a 10-day visit to Italy on Thursday with few official meetings on his schedule and no plans by the Vatican for a papal audience for the Tibetan spiritual leader, despite earlier reports there would be one. &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry I won&#8217;t meet him,&#8221; the Italian news agency&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2007-12-06T16:34:04+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi","name":"Dalai Lama Starts Italian Visit; No Papal Meeting Planned","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-12-06T16:34:04+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-06T16:34:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/dalai-lama-starts-italian-visi#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dalai Lama Starts Italian Visit; 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