c. 1999 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Despite mounting opposition from the United States and other quarters, the Vatican is going ahead with plans for Pope John Paul II to make a controversial visit to Iraq as part of a millennium-year pilgrimage to Middle East biblical sites.

The Roman Catholic leader will travel to at least two of the pilgrimage sites _ including Abraham’s birthplace at Ur of the Chaldees _ in early December, just before the start of holy year 2000, according to various reports. The second site is reportedly Mount Sinai in Egypt.

John Paul has repeatedly called for an end to the U.N.-imposed economic sanctions in place against Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The sanctions are strongly supported by the United States. The pope maintains such sanctions only hurt civilians while doing nothing to weaken entrenched dictatorships.

Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein would presumably welcome the pope drawing attention to his anti-sanctions position while in Iraq. During a 1998 visit to Cuba, the pope urged the lifting of U.S.-backed sanctions against that nation.

However, John Paul also called for wider religious and human rights while in Cuba, issuing his calls in the presence of Cuban strongman Fidel Castro, underscoring the political risk Hussein would be taking should the pontiff visit Iraq.

The Vatican has not officially confirmed John Paul will go to Iraq. Spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said although the pope”ardently desires”to make the trip, it”has not yet been set.” However, church leaders in the Middle East say planning for the trip is well advanced.

Patriarch Raphael Bidawid, head of Iraq’s 800,000-member Chaldean Catholic Church, said in an interview to be published Friday (Sept. 3) in the French Catholic daily La Croix that”both sides”will make statements about the trip”next week.””I have no authority to give you a date,”Bidawid said, according to an advance text of the interview reported by Reuters news service.”My feeling is that the visit will take place before Christmas.” Bidawid last week said a request for a papal visit to Iraq”has already been presented officially to the government of Baghdad. The holy father will certainly meet with President Saddam Hussein”during his visit, Bidawid added.

In Washington, the State Department has left no doubt about U.S. opposition to a papal visit to Iraq, arguing Saddam would use it to legitimize his regime.”We have expressed our concern through diplomatic channels, given the probability that the Iraqi regime might try to manipulate the visit for political ends,”State Department spokesman James Foley said.”We have asked the Vatican to take this reality into consideration.” Thursday (Sept. 2), Iraqi exile opposition groups added their voice to the opposition, issuing a statement in Cairo that said a meeting between John Paul and Saddam would hand the Iraqi leader a public relations coup.

In the statement, some 30 prominent opposition leaders _ including former army, government and religious leaders _ said the pope should not visit Iraq”while it is under the rule of a despot with the blood of innocent people on his hands.” The World Jewish Congress has also expressed opposition to a papal visit to Iraq, saying such a trip would be”deeply troubling”given Saddam’s human rights record.

The private French radio station Europe One has reported John Paul will visit Iraq Dec. 3-4 and the Monastery of St. Catherine at the base of Egypt’s Mount Sinai on Dec. 5.

The radio station said Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, who acts as the pope’s foreign minister, had a heated argument with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about the visit to Iraq. It did not say when or where they met.

Foley said the U.S. government understands the pope’s wish to make the pilgrimage.”But at the same time,”he said,”Iraq remains a brutal dictatorship where torture and summary executions are common facts and the people are denied fundamental human rights.” The United States and Britain have been carrying out almost daily bombing raids since the collapse in December of the UNSCOM mission to verify the dismantling of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction following the Gulf War. The raids include the area the pope hopes to visit.

Archbishop Renato Martino, the permanent Vatican observer at the United Nations, said in an interview Thursday in the Catholic daily newspaper Avvenire that a meeting between the pope and Saddam would arise from the”decorum of international relations”and would not provide a”sanctification of the regime.” Referring to U.S. officials, Martino said,”There are people this trip does not please and thus they have tried to attribute a political significance to it. The pope has been throughout the world and shaken everyone’s hand, but this does not mean to say that he has married the ideas of those whom he has met.”He goes to all the countries to say what he believes and, in general, he leaves a sign of his passing. Thus, we think that he will know how to face the situation in which he will find himself.” In a letter published June 30, the 79-year-old pontiff said his planned Middle East stops would comprise a spiritual pilgrimage through”the history of salvation”with ecumenical _ but no political _ implications.

John Paul said he hoped to start his journey at Ur of the Chaldees, an archaeological site in southern Iraq, about 225 miles from Baghdad, where tradition holds God first spoke to Abraham.

From there, he said he would like to travel to Mount Sinai, where the Hebrew Bible says Moses received the Ten Commandments from God; to Mount Nebo in Jordan, from which Moses saw the Promised Land; to the Israeli and Palestinian cities of Nazareth, Jerusalem and Bethlehem associated with Jesus;

and to Damascus, Syria, and Athens, Greece, both of which are connected with the Apostle Paul.

Greek Orthodox Archbishop Damianos of Sinai told the Italian news agency ANSA in Cairo on Thursday the pope had sent him a letter asking to make a private visit”to the cradle of the Old Testament”on Dec. 5, after his stop in Iraq. He said John Paul could continue on from Sinai to Jerusalem.

Israeli officials have for months said John Paul would likely visit the Holy Land in March. The Vatican also has not confirmed travel plans for the pope at that time.

Opposition from Greek Orthodox leaders in Athens have made a visit to the Greek capital unlikely. The Greek church’s Holy Council of the Clergy said in Athens on Thursday a papal visit would”create concerns and problems among the people and the clergy.” Eds: Polk reported from the Vatican, Rifkin from Washington)

DEA END POLK