Pope’s Historic Visit to a Damascus Mosque

In “John Paul First Pope to Visit Mosque” (May 7), Richard Boudreaux speculates that the pope’s “gesture is largely symbolic.” I find it unreasonable that he sees Pope John Paul II’s visit as symbolic, considering that a pope has never entered a Muslim mosque and that a pope has not been in that region since 1034. If symbolism was all the pope was trying to accomplish, then why hasn’t anyone traveled there for hundreds of years?

The visit is not just a symbol. It is a powerful statement toward peaceful dialogue and relationship-building.

Chris Anderson

Van Nuys

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It is hard to see how the pope can truly regret the past without dealing with papal authority. Wonderful news would be to read that “today the pope, speaking ex cathedra , infallibly declared the fallibility of the Roman Catholic Church. Christians from all parts of the world--Protestants, Lutherans, Episcopalians, scripturally based Christian churches and the Orthodox churches--suddenly could no longer see any reason to separate themselves from Catholics and rejoiced that Christ’s body on Earth would no longer be torn in pieces.”

Then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger could put his great intellect to work in the ecumenical wing of the church and join hands with Hans Kung.

Mike Strong

Corona del Mar

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Perhaps the pope’s apology to members of Orthodox Christianity for past grievances (May 5), while largely welcomed, might be viewed more favorably with a more outward demonstration, such as the return of the four bronze horses stolen by the Venetians in the so-called Fourth Crusade in 1204 and now residing in a dark room of the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice. Since the Hippodrome in Constantinople, now Istanbul, which formerly housed them, is no longer extant, perhaps the best place to return them would be Athens.

Philip Marlin

Woodland Hills