In pursuit of peace and reconciliation
22 May 2014 by Edward Kessler – The Tablet
The purpose of Francis’ momentous pilgrimage is to cement a historic peace with the Eastern Orthodox Church, but observers will be looking to him to use his influence to ease political and religious tensions in today’s divided Middle East. This will not be Pope Francis’ first visit to the Holy Land. Fr Jorge Bergoglio was in Israel in October 1973, when he was provincial of the Jesuits. But then the Yom Kippur War obliged him to stay in his hotel, so he spent most of his time reading the Bible, and did not have much opportunity to tour. It will be different this time.
The Pope will arrive in Jordan today, accompanied by his friends from Buenos Aires, Rabbi Abraham Skorka, rector of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary, and Omar Abboud, the Muslim director of the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue. The highlight of his trip will be a meeting with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Eastern Orthodox Archbishop of Constantinople, whom he will meet in private followed by a joint declaration at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
It is tempting to think …
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