c. 1999 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ The Vatican confirmed Wednesday (Nov. 17) that Pope John Paul II will make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in late March of the year 2000 but said the exact dates have not yet been set.

The announcement came in a footnote to the month of March in a revised Calendar of Holy Year 2000 issued at a Vatican news conference by the committee organizing the jubilee celebrations of the Roman Catholic Church worldwide.”The Holy Father’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land is expected in the last 10 days of the month of March,”the footnote said.

The Vatican’s missionary news agency Fides reported that plans also are going forward for the pope to make a controversial trip to Iraq, probably in late January, to visit Ur of the Chaldees, birthplace of the Patriarch Abraham.

The 79-year-old pontiff announced in June he hoped to celebrate Holy Year 2000 and the start of the third millennium of Christianity with a pilgrimage through”the history of salvation,”visiting Old and New Testament sites in Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine Authority territory, Syria and Greece.

Wednesday’s announcement remained conditional, however, with final plans apparently depending both on the pope’s health and on the resolution of a dispute over construction of a mosque beside the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.”The Holy Father’s apostolic trip to the Holy Land should happen in the last 10 days of March, but the exact dates have not yet been established,”Bishop Crescenzio Sepe, secretary general of the Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, told the news conference.

Sepe indicated a papal visit to Nazareth has not been ruled out despite the hotly protested decision of the Israeli government to permit construction of the mosque next to the church traditionally believed to mark the place the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary she would conceive a son.”The program must still be defined, which also goes for the possible presence of the pope at Nazareth on March 25 for the Feast of the Annunciation,”he said. He said plans also call for the pope to visit Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Fides, the news agency of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, said a five-man delegation will fly to Amman, Jordan, and drive from there to Baghdad on Saturday to resume planning the pope’s visit to Ur.

The Vatican announced a”pause for reflection”last month after a group of Iraqi scholars criticized the pope for planning a spiritual pilgrimage and said he would be welcome only if he denounced the economic sanctions the United Nations imposed on Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The U.S. and British governments strongly oppose the visit to Iraq on the grounds Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would try to exploit it politically, and the Vatican demanded Saddam guarantee the pope’s presence would not be politicized.”Finally we are going ahead with preparations for this visit,”Iraqi Chaldean Patriarch Raphael Bidawid told Fides. Bidawid has mediated in the negotiations between Baghdad and the Vatican.

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The advance team will include the Rev. Roberto Tucci, the Jesuit priest who acts as chief organizer of papal trips; Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano of the Vatican Secretariat of State; a security expert; and two technicians from the Italian airline Alitalia, which would fly the pope to Baghdad.

Fides said the Vatican would ask the United Nations to open an air corridor so the pope could fly directly to the Iraqi capital. From there he would travel by helicopter to Ur, 240 miles to the south.

Once the logistics are settled, Bishop Piero Marini, master of pontifical liturgical celebrations, will travel to Baghdad to plan the ceremonial aspects of the trip, Fides said.

Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Zakka II of Antioch gave his warm endorsement last Friday (Nov. 12) to a papal visit to Damascus, but Greek Orthodox leaders have warned the Roman Catholic pontiff would not be welcome in Athens.

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At the news conference, the Holy Year committee also announced plans to link the celebration closely to charity. This will include providing free beds and meals for impoverished pilgrims, ransoming child soldiers in Sierra Leone at the cost of about $110 a head, and helping street children in Brazil.

Volker Goetz, president of the Holy Year committee’s Solidarity Fund, said his group has raised $17 million so far, mainly by licensing the use of the Holy Year logo of five white doves in hologram form on both religious and non-religious articles.

Sepe said the Vatican has set up strict criteria for licensing, based on the”moral, professional and ethical”standing of the firms involved. The companies will pay the Vatican 6 percent to 10 percent of the production cost of items bearing the logo.

Major firms licensed to date include Kodak and Richard Ginori, an Italian producer of fine china. Others are makers of medals, phone cards, watches, T-shirts and banners for use at jubilee celebrations.

DEA END POLK