Pope Finalizes Plans for Visit to Holy Land
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JERUSALEM — Pope John Paul II will stop at holy sites in areas contested on religious and political grounds during a visit to the Holy Land between March 21 and March 26, Israeli officials said Sunday.
The pontiff will bathe in the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized, conduct Masses in Nazareth and Bethlehem, and visit Israel’s Holocaust museum, they said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Aviv Shiron said it had not yet been decided whether Israeli officials would accompany the pope during his tour of the contested city of Jerusalem, claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians as their capital. Israel annexed East Jerusalem after capturing it in the 1967 Six-Day War, but most other countries and the Vatican do not recognize the annexation.
A Palestinian official said the pope would celebrate Masses at the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem and at the Basilica of the Annunciation in the Israeli town of Nazareth.
The Palestinian official also said the pontiff will visit holy sites in Jordan.
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