JERUSALEM — Pope Francis wrapped up his Mideast pilgrimage Monday with a balancing act of symbolic and spontaneous gestures to press his call for peace between Israel and the Palestinians and friendship between Jews and Muslims in the land of
JERUSALEM — Pope Francis wrapped up his Mideast pilgrimage Monday with a balancing act of symbolic and spontaneous gestures to press his call for peace between Israel and the Palestinians and friendship between Jews and Muslims in the land of Jesus’ birth.
A day after he boosted Palestinian aspirations by praying at Israel’s security barrier surrounding Bethlehem, Francis honored Holocaust victims by kissing the hands of survivors, and accepted Israel’s last-minute request to pray at a memorial to victims of suicide bombings and other attacks.
But the image that the Vatican hopes will define the trip, and perhaps Francis’ young papacy, was another: that of the leader of the 1.2 billion strong Catholic Church embracing his Argentine friends, a rabbi and a Muslim, in front of the Western Wall, adjacent to the disputed hilltop compound that lies at the heart of decades of Israel-Arab tensions. After visiting the golden-topped Dome of the Rock shrine on the compound on Monday morning, Francis prayed at the nearby Western Wall, leaving a hand-written note with the “Our Father” prayer written in his native Spanish in between the cracks of stone.
When he finished, a visibly emotional Francis embraced Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Omar Abboud, a leader of Argentina’s Muslim community, both of whom joined Francis on his official delegation in a potent symbol of interfaith friendship.
