How far will Pope Francis go to defend Palestinians’ right to a state of their own?

“The pope, by his very presence, will surprise us . . . He has the very dangerous talent of saying in clear words what is going on. The man is very annoyingly not a diplomat, and he is coming into a minefield where he will have to be diplomatic, but I expect the surprises are going to come in those very clear, short sentences that say the truth . . . And that is something that we are not used to from heads of state visiting the Middle East.”

On the eve of Pope Francis’s three-day trip to the Holy Land, beginning today in Jordan, the Latin Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem, Fr David Neuhaus, yesterday indicated something of the expectations generated by what is only the second overseas trip of this fledgling pontificate.

On an intense visit that takes in Jordan, Bethlehem and the holy city of Jerusalem, Time's man of the year sets out on a pilgrimage rich in iconic symbolism as he visits the sites of Christ's birth, baptism, crucifixion and resurrection.

What is more, the pope intends to do all this in his own inimitable style, travelling around at various points in an open jeep and even in a golf buggy on the banks of the Jordan today, a nightmare headache for security forces.

For all that Pope Francis continues to emphasise his short visit is essentially a pilgrimage, every step he takes, every word he utters over the next three days will be subject to intense political analysis.

In meetings with the king of Jordan, Abdullah II; with the president of the state (authority) of Palestine, Abu Mazen; and with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the pope may outline not only the Vatican's persistent belief in a "two states for two peoples" solution but also his own "road map" for improved interfaith relations.

As an indication of how he sees good interfaith relations, Pope Francis has included two old friends from Argentina, Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Prof Omar Aboud, in his official delegation.

Schism

Essentially, this trip is prompted by the desire to recall that historic moment 50 years ago when Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras, brought an end to 1,000 years of schism between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches when meeting in Jerusalem.

That encounter prompted the two church leaders to lift their mutual excommunications, heralding an era of improved relations between Rome and the various Orthodox churches. A high point in this trip comes tomorrow evening at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem, believed to be the site of Christ’s crucifixion, when Pope Francis and the current Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, pray together.

Shame Given that Pope Francis is widely seen as the pope who wants “a church of the poor and for the poor”, many in the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank will be watching closely to see just how far and with what tone he defends the Palestinians’ right to a state of their own.

Another iconic moment will come when the pope makes a brief visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust centre on Monday. Here, he seems certain to touch on the shame of the Catholic church’s centuries-long promotion of anti-Semitism and may also make reference to one of his predecessors, wartime Pope Pius XII, who has the dubious distinction of earning a place in the museum because of his alleged failure to fully denounce the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust.

Pope Pius XII remained largely silent in October 1943 as the Nazis rounded up 1,024 Jews from the Rome ghetto, less than 2km from the Vatican. All but 16 of the 1,024 died at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Holocaust centre director Avner Shalev told The Irish Times this week that he expected the pope to address this issue, because "the sources of hate against Judaism and the roots of anti-Semitism represent the ideological basis to the Holocaust."

Surprises The museum director also expressed the hope that the Vatican would open up all of its historical archives to historians so research on Pope Pius XII could be “completed in the very near future”. Indeed, some have speculated that Pope Francis, someone not new to surprises, may even announce the full opening up of the archives during his speech at the Hall of Remembrance on Monday.

During his visit to Yad Vashem, the pope will meet with six Holocaust survivors, and today, in Jordan, he meets with refugees, mainly children, of the civil war in Syria.

Will this visit change anything? Perhaps not much, but an experienced Middle East observer like Fr Neuhaus suggests the pope, although “no magician”, is trying paint a picture of “what relations could be like if we only opened our imaginations”.