Abbas and Peres join pope at Vatican to pray for peace in Middle East

As first steps go, this was one of huge solemnity.

There is no guarantee that last night's three-way prayer in the Vatican featuring Pope Francis, Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas will represent an important moment in the tortured pursuit of peace in the Holy Land, but the least that can be said is that this was a remarkable initiative on the part of the pope.

It was Francis who set up the event when, during his visit to the Holy Land two weeks ago, he invited both presidents to the Vatican to pray for peace with him. There were plenty of moments both before and after the issuing of those invitations when the meeting was in doubt.

In the end, however, both leaders turned up for one of the most remarkable prayer meetings ever held in the Vatican.

Having briefly and separately greeted both leaders in the foyer of his Vatican home, the Domus Santa Marta, Francis quickly bundled them into a minibus for a tour through the Vatican gardens. They were accompanied by the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, well known to all three.

When the party arrived at the Vatican gardens, close to the Casina Pius IV, where the prayer service was to be held, all four men then walked slowly side by side to their appointed places, to the accompaniment of the haunting notes of Samuel Barber's Adagio For Strings.

On a warm June evening in Rome, on the elegantly groomed lawns of the Vatican museums, this was a moment of rare and historic solemnity.

A moving ceremony followed, in which Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians and Muslims (in that order) offered their own prayers for peace in the conflict-ridden Holy Land.

Prayers were said in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Italian, cadenced by moments of music and of silence. Throughout the ceremony, the pope sat between the two presidents in one corner of the garden, flanked by the three delegations containing rabbis, imams, cardinals, archbishops and various lay readers.

Hour-long ceremony

All three sat in silence throughout the hour-long ceremony, but when it concluded, they shook hands before moving off to a corner of the garden. They planted a small olive tree “as an enduring symbol of the mutual desire for peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples”.

Before the symbolic tree-planting, however, all three offered their own reflections on the significance of this remarkable moment.

It was at this point that, despite all the fine rhetoric and good intentions, the difficult nature of the peace process made itself heard. For example, both presidents stressed the importance of the Holy City of Jerusalem for their faiths.

“The holy city of Jerusalem is the beating heart of the Jewish people,” President Peres said. “In Hebrew, our ancient language, the word Jerusalem and the word for peace share the same root and indeed, peace is the vision of Jerusalem.”

President Abbas, too, spoke of Jerusalem. “Oh God, we ever praise you for making Jerusalem our gate to heaven . . . Save our blessed city Jerusalem; the first Qiblah, the second holy mosque, the third of the two holy mosques and the city of blessings and peace with all that surround it”

Three monotheisms

Despite that little bit of territorial “emphasis”, with its obvious reference to the fact that all three monotheisms lay “claim” to Jerusalem, it did seem that both presidents were willing to walk that extra mile.

Mr Peres, for example, broke off from his prepared text to say that as a young and as an old man, he had experienced both war and peace. “Never will I forget the bereaved families and their children who paid the price of war. Let us get together, let us join hands and make it (peace) happen.”

Pope Francis expressed the wish that their prayers might “mark the beginning of a new journey”, calling on both sides, the “children of Abraham”, to “tear down the walls of enmity and to set out on the path of dialogue and peace”.

He concluded: “Renew our hearts and minds, so that the word which always brings us together will be ‘brother’ and our way of life will always be that of shalom, peace, salaam. Amen.”