c. 1998 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ The Vatican’s foreign minister has harshly criticized Israel’s 21-years of rule over East Jerusalem while suggesting the Roman Catholic Church would support shared Israeli-Palestinian sovereignty over the city as long as its long-standing demands for free access to religious sites are guaranteed.

Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, made his statement at a closed, two-day conference here of about 40 Catholic bishops and cardinals from around the world. Cardinals Bernard Law of Boston and Claude Turcotte of Montreal were among those on hand.

The conference, which ended Tuesday (Oct. 27), urged a”special statute”governing Jerusalem’s most sacred quarters as part of any final Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.

Church officials here said the statute would make concrete the long-standing papal demand for international guarantees of free access by worshippers to all Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy places.

Tauran’s statement on Jerusalem castigated Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods in language that was among the strongest used by a top church official since the Vatican and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1993.

Tauran called it a”case of manifest international injustice … brought about and maintained by force.” Tauran also indicated that the Vatican _ currently negotiating diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority _ would support a final political settlement granting both Israelis and Palestinians sovereignty in the city.

Since moving away in recent years from its longtime insistence that Jerusalem be internationalized along the lines of a 1947 United Nation’s resolution, the Vatican’s position on the city’s political future has been vague, other than its stand on religious sites.

Tauran’s statement here represented an apparent clarification of the Vatican’s position on Jerusalem. “Any unilateral solution, or one brought about by force is not and cannot be a solution at all,”said Tauran.”It is the view of the Holy See that every exclusive claim _ be it religious or political _ is contrary to the logic proper to the very city itself.”… Having said that, there is nothing to prevent Jerusalem, in its unity and uniqueness, becoming the symbol and the national center of both the peoples that claim it as their capital.” Tauran added that the pope is not only interested in the religious aspects of the city, but also in its”political and territorial”dimensions”and has the right and duty to be, especially insofar as the matter remains unresolved and is the cause of conflict, injustice, human rights violations, restrictions of religious freedom and conscience, fear and personal insecurity.” Israeli officials, who have stated repeatedly that Israel will not share sovereignty or relinquish territory in Jerusalem in a final peace settlement, downplayed the impact of Tauran’s statement. “I thought it was a very general statement … remarkably anemic,”said Rabbi David Rosen, a member of the permanent bilateral commission between the state of Israel and the Holy See.

But Rosen also said he thought the condemnation of Israel’s”occupation”of East Jerusalem to be inappropriate because, he said, international law had never made a clear determination as to who should enjoy sovereignty over the city.

Tauran, in his statement, also indicated the Vatican was disturbed by Israel’s present-day efforts to secure its political claims in Jerusalem through rapid development aimed at bolstering the city’s Jewish population.”Jerusalem is a treasure of the whole of humanity,”Tauran said.”The identity of the city includes a sacred character which belongs not just to the individual sites or monuments … (but) involves Jerusalem in its entirety.”…The historical and material characteristics of the city, as well as its religious and cultural characteristics, must be preserved, and perhaps today it is necessary to speak of restoring and safeguarding those still existing … At stake is the basic question of preserving and protecting the identity of the Holy City in its entirety, in every aspect.”

DEA END FLETCHER