When Pope John Paul II traveled to the Holy Land in 2000, the visit was history, the first by a pope to recognize the state of Israel or visit sites holy to Islam.
When Benedict XVI travels on Friday to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, it will be much more about him personally. A man whose four-year papacy has been marked by missteps that angered and offended Jews and Muslims will deliver 32 speeches at some of the holiest sites in the world to Muslims, Jews and Christians. Each word will be scrutinized, particularly by listeners with little affection for him. Already, Islamic groups in Jordan are protesting.
“The thing that worries me most is the speech that the pope will deliver here,” Archbishop Fouad Twal, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, told the Israeli daily Haaretz on Wednesday. “One word for the Muslims and I’m in trouble; one word for the Jews and I’m in trouble. At the end of the visit the pope goes back to Rome and I stay here with the consequences.”
But for the Vatican, Benedict’s trip is an opportunity to urge Palestinians and Israelis toward peace and to continue his assiduous efforts to improve his standing with Jews and Muslims.
“The trip is very important and very complex,” the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said this week. He called the journey “an act of hope and faith toward peace and reconciliation.” Given the tensions in the region, he added, “it seems a brave gesture.”
In the works since last fall, Benedict’s trip comes at a time of change and uncertainty in the region. Israel just ushered in a new right-wing government, that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And the two main Palestinian factions remain hostile and divided, with the secular Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, controlling the West Bank, and the Islamist group Hamas ruling Gaza.
Source/Full Story:: NYTimes.com
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