Benedict’s Pilgrimage

A PILGRIMAGE to the Holy Land is one of the highlights of a papacy. In March, Pope Benedict announced he would be visiting Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan for a week in May – the first papal trip to the Holy Land since Pope John Paul visited during the jubilee year in 2000.

  In March, Pope Benedict said he was making the Holy Land pilgrimage “in order to ask the Lord, by visiting the sacred places of his earthly passage, for the precious gift of unity and peace for the Middle East and all humanity”.



First official visit



  “Even now I am counting on the spiritual support of all of you, so that God may accompany me and fill with grace all those I will meet along the way,” Pope Benedict  said.

  His first official visit to the region since he was elected in 2005, it was telling that Pope Benedict XVI’s May trip to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories was billed as pastoral, and not political, by his ambassador in Jerusalem, the papal nuncio Antonio Franco.

  For example, Pope Benedict was expected to visit Christian holy places as well as the Western Wall – the holiest site in Judaism – and the Dome of the Rock, which is one of the holiest Muslim shrines. The seventh century mosque contains a rock on which the Prophet Mohammed is said to have left his footprint as he ascended to heaven on a ‘night journey’.

  Thus the Pope was expected to show solidarity with the three Abrahamic faiths. “The intent of the Holy Father’s visit is to express his solidarity and closeness to the people of Israel and Palestine, and through them all, to the people of this region,” said the nuncio.

  “The papal trip comes amid controversies over the Holocaust, over violence between Israelis and Palestinians, among Palestinians and Israelis,” said the nuncio in an interview with the Italian-based

AsiaNews.

  “This land has its fill of problems. No one can imagine that a solution can be found in the short run. Realistically we must live with these problems for some time yet. Having said this, the Pope’s visit is significant in and of itself because of these tensions and difficulties. The Pope wants to express his solidarity towards the various groups and offer a message of encouragement to overcome difficulties and find solutions to problems.

 

Unresolved tensions



  However, while Archbishop Franco said the Pope would pray for Holocaust victims at Jerusalem’s Holocaust Memorial during his visit, he would not visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. A photo caption at the museum condemns the wartime pope Pius XII (1939-1958) for failing to react either verbally or in writing to the Nazi Holocaust, during which six million Jews were killed.

  Pope Benedict was also billed to meet Palestinian and Israeli political and religious leaders, including the Holy Land’s top Muslim official, Grand Mufti Mohammed Hussein, as well as visiting Galilee – the area in which Jesus lived and preached for much of his life – and Bethlehem, where Christ was born.

  Public masses were to be held in both areas, with 40,000 expected to attend a mass on a hilltop outside the northern city of Nazareth where Jesus lived. Israeli authorities were expressly asked by the Vatican to ease the blockade on Christians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to enable them to attend parts of the Pope’s pilgrimage.

  While in Jordan, the Pope was scheduled to visit the new King Hussein Mosque in the capital Amman and hold a mass in a football stadium as well as visiting Jesus’ baptismal site in the Jordan River and Mount Nebo, from where Moses gazed over the Promised Land.

  The nuncio said the trip had special significance in a region with many problems, and was a clarion call for peace and unity among the peoples, countries and Churches of the region.

  “Lest we forget, the Holy Land is home not only to Orthodox and Protestants, but also to six Catholic Churches. The ties of communion that bind Catholics must be strengthened,” he said.

  He was realistic about the limited prospects of the Pope’s visit pushing forward the peace process. “This land has its fill of problems,” said the nuncio. “No one can imagine that a solution can be found in the short run. Realistically we must live with these problems for some time yet.”

  But he added that the very nature of the tensions made the Pope’s visit all the more significant. “The Pope wants to express his solidarity towards the various groups and offer a message of encouragement to overcome difficulties and find solutions to problems.

  A lot of efforts and good will are needed all around,” he said. “The pilgrimage can favour the peace process, understanding, and solidarity to the profit of this land.”

 

Rocky relations

  

  It was hoped that Pope Benedict’s presence would ease the sometimes rocky relations between the Vatican and Israel, and between the Vatican and Muslims. Relations between the Vatican and Israel have strained recently, partly because of the Pope’s decision to lift the excommunication of a holocaust-denying bishop.

  Pope Benedict condemned the remarks of Bishop Michael Williamson and spoke out against anti-Semitism; he also called off the reinstatement until the bishop satisfied his demands, and added that “any denial or minimisation of this terrible crime is intolerable and altogether unacceptable”.

  The Pope also wrote a letter to Catholic bishops in which he regretted “mistakes” in the handling of the Williamson affair, suggesting the Vatican had been unaware of Williamson’s claims that no Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers, and should have consulted the Internet before deciding to lift his excommunication.

  A prominent Israeli rabbi thanked the Pope for “clearly” condemning Holocaust denial after an audience in March.

  Shear-Yashuv Cohen, the Grand Rabbi of Haifa, said their meeting marked “a positive turning point in the renewal of the dialogue between us… a very special experience, marking the end of a crisis.”

  The Pope had previously caused an outcry in the Muslim world over comments he had made in the German city of Regensburg in 2006, after which he had to backtrack having appeared to suggest that Islam was inherently violent and irrational.

  The Holy Land visit was welcomed by both Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Israeli President Shimon Peres said, “I am delighted that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has responded positively and accepted my invitation to visit the Holy Land. The Pope will be a most honoured guest, welcomed and respected by people from all walks of life. His visit will be a moving and important event, bringing the spirit of peace and hope.”

 

Christian rights

  

  As well as looking forward to welcoming the Pope, local Christians were also anticipating positive side-effects of his visit, including increased revenue through a spike in tourism and pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

  Christian leaders, however, stressed that for the local Church, the main focus of the Pope’s visit would be the message of solidarity he would bring from the wider Church.

  “The main purpose of the visit, as well as a visit to the Holy Places, is to meet and give encouragement to the small and suffering Christian communities,” said Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Franciscan Custos of the Holy Land.

  The issue of emigration is a major one for the indigenous Church. While in 1893, Christians represented 13 percent of the Palestinian people; now that number has dwindled to less than 2 percent.

  Emigration is a tempting option for many. The greater financial resources of Palestinian Christians living abroad, and their closer ties with the Western world, facilitate escape from a region to which they may never be able to return.

  Consequently, large numbers of Christians have been fleeing the Middle East for economic and political – rather than purely religious – reasons.

  Professor Bernard Sabella, a Catholic member of the Palestinian parliament and former sociology professor at Catholic-run Bethlehem University in the West Bank, said the exodus of Christians was “related to the global market. So if a young Palestinian – Christian or Muslim – can get work in the United States or Dubai, then they will go.”



A visit to Gaza?



  The spiritual head of Catholics in the Holy Land, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, said he hoped the Pope’s pilgrimage would encourage Christians to remain in the region.

  “We know he is coming at a very delicate moment to a very delicate region,” said Archbishop Fouad Twal.

  Although it is not the largest of the Holy Land’s Christian communities – the Greek Orthodox community is more numerous – the Catholic Church in the Holy Land is the most outspoken in terms of speaking out for Christian rights.

  Although he stressed that Pope Benedict’s visit would be pastoral in nature, Patriarch Twal said the Pope was certain to reiterate the Vatican’s position of justice and peace both for Palestinians and Israelis.

  “He is coming to the local Church before he comes to the local authorities,” Archbishop Twal told the US-based Catholic News Service.

  “We hope his visit will help us to stay in our land in our pastoral work and to encourage us to avoid emigration. We hope it will encourage us toward more dialogue, more justice and more peace.”

  And the patriarch stressed that even if the Pope did not visit Gaza, members of the beleaguered coastal enclave’s Christian community would join him at masses in other parts of the Holy Land, saying: “If he can’t go to Gaza, we will bring Gaza to him.”