c. 2000 Religion News Service
BETHLEHEM, West Bank _ Pope John Paul II, carrying his Holy Land pilgrimage to the Autonomous Palestinian Territories on Wednesday (March 22), celebrated Mass in Bethlehem, the place where Christians believe Jesus was born 2,000 years ago, and deplored the present day “torment” of the Palestinian people.
“Peace for the Palestinian people! Peace for all the peoples of the region!” the pope declared. “No one can ignore how much the Palestinian people have had to suffer in recent decades. Your torment is before the eyes of the world. And it has gone on too long.”
John Paul’s emotional expression of solidarity with the Palestinians capped a day that also saw him make a private visit to the Grotto of the Nativity and visit a Palestinian refugee camp. On Thursday, the pontiff faces one of the theologically and politically delicate moments of his trip _ a visit to Yad Vashem Hall of Remembrance, Israel’s Holocasut memorial.
The Roman Catholic pontiff spoke at a welcoming ceremony in the official residence of Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat where he shook hands with scores of Palestinian dignitaries, Orthodox priests and Muslim and Protestant clerics.
Arafat, speaking in Arabic, praised the pope as a peacemaker.
“Today, the successor of St. Peter, the rock on which the church built, returns to his roots, carrying the hopes and expectations of the Palestinian people.”
Later in the day, John Paul made a brief visit to the Deheisheh refugee camp run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Again sitting next to a beaming Arafat, this time in the crowded courtyard of a school, the pope heard speakers warn that there can be no peace in the Middle East until Palestinian refugees, displaced persons and emigrees are granted “the right of return.”
According to UNRWA, 3.3 million Palestinians live in 69 refugee camps scattered throughout the Middle East, some of the camps dating to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Tens of thousands of other refugees have emigrated throughout the Middle East and to other parts of the world.
The “right of return” is a key issue in the negotiations that Palestinians and Israelis resumed in Washington Tuesday (March 21) in an effort to reach the comprehensive settlement that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has pledged by September.
“It is deeply significant that here, close to Bethlehem, I am meeting with you, refugees and displaced persons,” the pope said. “Probably the pastors, the shepherds of Bethlehem were your predecessors, your ancestors.”
The pontiff called for a “resolute effort” to resolve the plight of the refugees.
“I appeal to political leaders to implement agreements already arrived at and to go forward to the peace for which all reasonable men and women yearn and the justice to which they have an unalienable right,” he said.
“The church and her social and charitable agencies will continue to be at your side, will continue to plead your case before the world,” the pope said. “God bless all of you.”
Most Palestinians at the camp were excited about the pope’s visit and said they hoped it would promote peace, but they were also uncompromising in the demand that all refugees should be allowed to return to lands that are now part of the state of Israel.
“For sure we have to return,” said Naamaa Abu Iyyah, a mother of six who has lived most of her 39 years in the Dheisheh camp only about five miles from her family’s original village inside present day Israel. “We believe we’ll go back. Even if you ask a small child, he will tell you the same thing.”
Najib Amarneh, 42, the immam, or preacher, at a mosque in the camp known as the Martyrs Mosque was even more adamant that the land Israel now occupies would eventually revert to Arab and Muslim hands.
“Until now we all hope to return,” he said. “Our Koran tells us in chapter 17 on the first page that there will be an occupation by Israel and it will last for some years, but eventually it will be finished, and the Palestinians will return home. God will send strong people to kick them out of the Holy Land. The Jews have behaved badly, and Allah will punish them.”
Earlier, thousands of Palestinians applauded the pope and cried, “Viva il papa,” at a Mass celebrated in gray and windy weather in Manger Square outside the 6th century Basilica of the Nativity, which stands above the grotto where Jesus was believed to have been born.
“Because it is always Christmas in Bethlehem, every day is Christmas in the hearts of Christians,” the pope said.
In a message with special relevance to the small Christian minority in Bethlehem and throughout the Holy Land, the pope quoted from the gospel of Matthew, saying, “Today from Manger Square, we cry out to every time and place and to every person, `Peace be with you! Do not be afraid!”
The pontiff also offered “the holy kiss to the Christians of the other churches and ecclesial communities” present, greeted the Muslim community of Bethlehem and prayed “for a new era of understanding and cooperation of all the peoples of the Holy Land.”
John Paul has made his strong commitment to ecumenical and interfaith dialogue a theme of his pilgrimage marking the start of the third millennium of Christianity.
As if to underline the close proximity in which Christians and Muslims live, the daily call to prayer rang out from a loudspeaker on the minaret of the nearby Omar bin Khattab Mosque just as the pope finished his homily. There was a pause in the Mass until the muezzin had finished his call.
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John Paul began the third day of his weeklong pilgrimage by flying to Al-Maghtas on the west bank of the Jordan River, where some biblical scholars believe Jesus was baptized. The pope on Tuesday had traveled to Wadi-Al-Kharrar, an alternative baptismal site on the east bank of the river in Jordan.
The brief, private visit to Al-Maghtas was a last-minute addition to the pope’s schedule. Located in a mined Israeli military area in territory disputed by the Palestinians, it is opened only once a year to Orthodox and once a year to Roman Catholic pilgrims.
The Vatican agreed to the papal visit to the site at the urging of Arafat and on condition that no authorities were present.
The 79-year-old pontiff stood apart from his entourage on a railed observation point. He gazed at the narrow river winding through the lush, green Jordan Valley, prayed with bowed head and blessed water from the Jordan in a marble font.
On his arrival at the Bethlehem heliport in an Israeli military helicopter, the pope was offered a bowl of Palestinian earth to kiss, a gesture normally reserved for his first visit to a country. Although the Palestinians have not yet achieved that status, John Paul, a longtime supporter of Palestinian statehood, kissed the earth.
Although the question of Palestinian self-determination and the fate of the Palestinian refugees are highly charged political questions, the pope was careful to put them in a humanitarian context.
“I am fully aware of the great challenges facing the Palestinian Authority and people in every field of economic and cultural development,” he told Arafat. “In a particular way my prayers are with those Palestinians _ Muslim and Christian _ who are still without a home of their own, their proper place in society and the possibility of a normal working life.
“My hope is that my visit today to the Dheisheh Refugee Camp will serve to remind the international community that decisive action is needed to improve the situation of the Palestinian people,”he said.
The pope has voiced an appeal for peace at every opportunity during this pilgrimage, and today was no exception.
“How can I fail to pray that the divine gift of peace will become more and more a reality for all who live in this land, uniquely marked by God’s interventions?” he asked.
“The Holy See has always recognized that the Palestinian people have the natural right to a homeland and the right to be able to live in peace and tranquillity with the other peoples of this area,” the pope said.
“Shalom, grazie,” he said, using the Hebrew word for peace and the Italian for thanks.
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