POPE BENEDICT XVI yesterday visited Jewish and Muslim holy sites and celebrated an outdoor Mass in Jerusalem as a Vatican spokesman answered Israeli criticism over the pontiff’s attitude to the Holocaust.
The pontiff began the second day of his Holy Land pilgrimage with a visit to the golden Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The pope took off his shoes before entering the site, holy to Muslims as the place where Muhammad ascended to heaven, and to Jews as the site where Abraham was ready to sacrifice Isaac.
“This sacred place serves as a stimulus, and also challenges men and women of goodwill to work to overcome misunderstandings and conflicts of the past and set out on the path of a sincere dialogue,” Benedict said.
His message of peace continued at the adjacent Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, also known as the Wailing Wall, which is the only remaining outer wall of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans.
The pontiff inserted a message in the cracks between the stones, reading: “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, send your peace upon this holy land, upon the Middle East and the entire human family.” He said the visit provided an opportunity to reiterate the Catholic Church’s commitment to “a genuine and lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews”.
As the pope was visiting the holy sites, Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi responded to some of the negative comments in the Israeli media following the opening day of the papal pilgrimage.
Media reports focused on the pope’s speech at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and the fact that the German-born pope did not in his comments mention the Germans as perpetrators, used the word “killed” and not “murdered” when describing the victims, and did not ask for forgiveness.
Rev Lombardi denied the widely reported claim that the young Benedict was a member of the Hitler Youth organisation, and said he shouldn’t have to apologise for being forced to wear a Wehrmacht uniform. Speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem, the spokesman also stressed that the pope had mentioned his German roots when visiting a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, in 2005 and at the Auschwitz death camp the following year. “He can’t mention everything every time he speaks,” Rev Lombardi said.
The pope prayed yesterday at the site of Jesus’s last supper with his disciples before his crucifixion and resurrection, the focus of Jerusalem’s importance for Christians.
Late in the afternoon the pope held the first outdoor Mass of his pilgrimage in the valley of Jehoshaphat beneath the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.
He told the thousands of Christian pilgrims from all over the world that he felt the pain of the conflict in the Holy Land. “I wish to acknowledge the difficulties, the frustration and the pain and suffering which so many of you have endured as a result of the conflicts which have afflicted these lands, and the bitter experiences of displacement.”
He spoke of the high number of Christians emigrating from the area, calling the emigration a “tragic reality”. He urged the authorities to respect the Christian presence in the region, telling the crowd: “In the Holy Land there is room for everyone.”
Pope Benedict will hold his second Mass today when he visits Bethlehem in the West Bank, where he will also meet with Palestinian leaders and refugees.
Tomorrow, the penultimate day of his Middle East trip, the pope will celebrate an outdoor Mass at Mount Precipice near Nazareth, the site where a mob tried to throw Jesus off a cliff.
Papal prayer
The text of note placed by the pope in the Western Wall:
“God of all the ages, on my visit to Jerusalem, the ‘City of Peace’, spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations, the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world.
“God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family; stir the hearts of all who call upon your name, to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion.
“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.” (Lamentations 3:25)