Pertini meets Pope

From Our Rome Correspondent
THE ITALIAN President Sandro Pertini paid his first official visit to Pope John Paul II on Monday morning and the Pope will return the visit to the President's residence, the Quirinale, on June 2.
Both participants swept aside protocol because of their warm friendship which is based partly on Pertini's memories of his devoutly Catholic mother.
Such warmth would hardly be possible between a Catholic president of Italy and an Italian Pope as it would awake fears of the State ceding to the Church.
But Pertini is a socialist agnostic and John Paul a Pole. Their friendship augurs well both for successful conclusions of the Concordat negotiations and Church-State relations generally despite the rumpus about the dealings of the Vatican bank with the failed Ambrosiano bank.