Sensitive Ground Awaits Pope on Holy Land Visit

The last time a pope visited the Holy Land, in 1964, Jerusalem was a physically divided city, with land mines separating Israel’s portion from the area controlled by Jordan.

When Pope John Paul II arrives here Tuesday on his historic pilgrimage to today’s Holy Land, the minefields will be political and psychological, but every bit as treacherous.

Preaching reconciliation and peace, and fulfilling a lifelong dream, John Paul will follow the footsteps of Jesus from his birthplace in Bethlehem to his childhood home of Nazareth and along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In Jerusalem, the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, the pope will tread into a cultural battleground where Christians, Jews and Muslims worship in a finite and hotly contested space.

From the outset, his every move is becoming entangled in the political rivalries of the tortuous Middle East peace process.

Never before has a papal pilgrimage been to a land so fraught with potential disaster and possibly explosive faux pas. Despite the Vatican’s repeated assertions that the visit is spiritual and personal, Israelis and Palestinians are vying for the pontiff’s attentions and affirmation.

His arrival in Israel is seen as a landmark gesture toward healing the painful 2,000-year schism between Jews and Christians. And by meeting with Palestinian leaders and refugees, he will also pay homage to their struggle for a state and a national identity.

But almost everyone, it seems, wants a piece of the pope, and the competing agendas have made for plenty of pre-papal turmoil. Every detail of the pilgrimage has been arduously negotiated, and then scrutinized for significance and nuance.

Will he kiss Palestinian soil? Will Israeli guards accompany him to Muslim holy sites? Why was the Star of David removed from his ambulance?

So much ill will has been generated that some here wonder if the seven-day papal mission, which begins today in Jordan, will be appreciated for its profound historical significance, or squandered as another occasion for a Middle East melee.

“Can the people of The Land rise to this occasion?” asked Daniel Rossing, a former official with the Israeli Religious Affairs Ministry and expert on interfaith relations. “The pope is coming to reach out. The question is: Will someone be there to take his hand, or will we get completely bogged down in scoring points and settling accounts?”

Attitudes among Israeli Jews range from anger to ambivalence to apathy; Palestinians are looking for political gain; and even among the pope’s own small besieged flock, some Catholics resent having to share their Holy Father with so many other people.

But the pope remains undaunted, determined not to be distracted by controversy and intent on showing Christians and Jews their common heritage rooted in the Old Testament and this ancient land that is its stage.

“There’s the risk that, whatever he does, he might leave a bad taste with the Jews, with the Muslims, with the Orthodox Christians, with the Catholics, who all might see him as appeasing their adversaries--all these things are possible,” said Father Paul Makowski, a Jesuit biblical scholar in Rome. “My guess is that he realizes that, whatever elbows go through windows, the hurt is going to be temporary. I think he wants to say, ‘We have done everything we can to heal the breaches.’

“When you have a long view of history, as the pope does, the frustrations and disappointments of the present don’t move you to despair as quickly; and the successes that you have are less likely to turn your head.”

For many Jews, the pope’s presence dredges up centuries of Jewish-Christian conflict: anti-Semitism, pogroms, the Inquisition, the forced conversion of Jews. Furthermore, the Vatican is seen as pro-Palestinian, especially since most Christians here are also Arabs.

Posters have appeared in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods blasting the pontiff as “the enemy.” Small but noisy radical groups are staging demonstrations against the visit. More than 2,000 rabbis signed a petition asking the pope to curtail his itinerary so as not to desecrate the Jewish Sabbath. (The mere request infuriated local Catholic officials, who note that the Christian Day of the Annunciation falls on the Sabbath; still, a decision was made to land fewer of the pope’s helicopters in Jerusalem on Friday night and Saturday.)

But more than overt hostility, it is a simple lack of awareness that shapes most Israeli Jews’ attitudes toward Christians, according to Jewish and Christian leaders who advocate interfaith dialogue.

Pope John Paul II is widely credited with having worked far beyond any of his predecessors to improve the church’s relationship with Judaism. This Polish-born pontiff, who chats in Polish with one of Israel’s chief rabbis, has repeatedly spoken out against the Holocaust and the mistreatment of Jews through the ages. He pushed for changes in the way the Roman Catholic Church taught about Jews, who were historically portrayed as a perfidious people in need of conversion.

Pope Helped Advance Jewish-Catholic Ties

It was under this pope that the Vatican and Israel finally opened formal diplomatic ties in 1994.

“John Paul has done more for Jewish-Catholic relations in 30 years than was done in the whole previous 2,000 years,” said Father Michael McGarry, director of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies.

These sea changes in church doctrine and attitude have been lost on many Israeli Jews. None of the documents containing the church’s more tolerant statements were translated into Hebrew before 1994, according to Rabbi David Rosen, head of the Anti-Defamation League office in Israel.

“The reality [of the new church doctrine] is only just beginning to seep through for Jews, especially in Israel,” Rosen said. “The pain, bitterness and wounds are still very much real for many people.”

The Anti-Defamation League has taken the unusual step of publishing two-page ads in today’s major Israeli newspapers listing the conciliatory statements made during John Paul’s more than 21 years as pope.

A week ago Sunday, John Paul issued an unprecedented, sweeping apology and begged forgiveness for an array of sins committed by Christians and in the name of their faith.

He specifically apologized to the Jews, but he did not mention the Holocaust by name, which left many Israelis dissatisfied. Yisrael Meir Lau, the Polish-born chief rabbi of Ashkenazi Jews and a survivor of the Holocaust, said he hopes that John Paul will use an appearance at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial Thursday to issue a more explicit plea.

Lau speaks warmly of John Paul, whom he has met several times, and praises his steps in behalf of reconciliation. But they are only an opening chapter, Lau said. A remaining hurdle is Pope Pius XII, the Holocaust-era pontiff. Some in the Vatican want to beatify him, but Jews decry what they say was his failure to speak out sufficiently against the Nazis, who sent 6 million Jews to their death during World War II.

And while Jews were grumbling that the pope’s apology didn’t go far enough, Muslims said they deserve an apology too for their ancestors slain by Christians during the Crusades.

The pope is also wading into the most tricky minefield in the Middle East: the status of Jerusalem. Both Israelis and Palestinians are trumpeting the number of hours he is spending, or kinds of appearances he is making, on their side of town, to bolster their claims to the disputed holy capital.

Dueling Expectations From Israel, Muslims

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, cautioned the pope against doing or saying anything that would challenge Israeli sovereignty over the city. “We have to show sensitivity to the pope,” Olmert said, “and I expect the Vatican to do the same.”

Not surprisingly, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Sheik Ekrima Sabri, has mirror-image expectations. “We hope the pope will exert pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Jerusalem,” Sabri, the senior Islamic leader here, said at his office in the Old City.

Although Sabri will meet the pope at the revered Al Aqsa mosque, he said he will boycott an interfaith meeting with John Paul because he refuses to join with Jewish rabbis who “support the occupation.”

The pope is clearly dismayed that the meeting will not come off as he hoped. Never have the senior leaders of the three monotheistic faiths sat together, and the pope held up this session as an important pillar of the pilgrimage.

“The question is not who will or will not attend,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said. “The question is how is it possible for 50 years living in the same place and you couldn’t even have the opportunity to meet before. And this in the name of God!”

More fireworks can be expected when the pope visits the Dahaisha refugee camp outside Bethlehem. A collection of narrow, winding streets and crumbling white-washed buildings, Dahaisha is one of 27 camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that house more than 500,000 Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes when the state of Israel was founded in 1948.

Israel adamantly refuses to allow the refugees to return home, yet the church maintains that the right of return is sacred. If the pope so pronounces, he will infuriate his Israeli hosts. Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who will escort the pope through Dahaisha, is hoping that he will do just that.

In this cradle of Christianity, less than 3% of the population is Christian, and roughly half that number consists of Eastern Orthodox, who steadfastly reject the pope.

The pope’s most natural followers, the Catholics, are in an uproar over what should for them be a once-in-a-lifetime blessing. Although the pope is scheduled to celebrate four public Masses, many Christians say it’s not enough.

As a minority in this region, the Catholics believe that they deserve a special boost. Aside from the Masses, the pope will not have personal, one-on-one meetings with any ordinary Christians. He will visit Dahaisha, full of Palestinian Muslims but with not a single Christian.

“If he wants to see the Holy Land but doesn’t want to meet Christians, why come?” said Nasri Hazboun, a Christian businessman in Bethlehem.

Hazboun, whose clan traces its roots in Bethlehem back centuries, noted that when Pope Paul VI visited 36 years ago, he called on individual families even as he inspected the churches and holy sites.

Israeli Jews remember the 1964 papal visit for other reasons. Pope Paul VI refused to meet with Israel’s chief rabbi or utter the word “Israel.”

This week’s pilgrimage could not be more different.

Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux in Rome contributed to this report.