Pope Presses Israeli on Access to Bethlehem

Pope John Paul II gave Israel and its president his blessing Thursday, but he pressed the Israeli leader to allow Christians to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem and underlined the Vatican’s long-standing support for co-existing Palestinian and Israeli states.

“God bless you. God bless Israel,” John Paul said at the end of a private audience with Moshe Katsav, the first Israeli president to be received by a Roman Catholic pontiff at the Vatican. The Israeli Embassy described the audience as “warm and cordial.”

A Vatican spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said the issues discussed at Katsav’s meetings with the pope and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, included the conflict in the Holy Land, access to Bethlehem and bilateral relations.

The wording of his statement indicated a difference of opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but gave no details.

“There was talk in depth on the dramatic situation existing in the Holy Land in which each party expressed his point of view,” the spokesman said.

He added that the pope had spelled out “the position of the Holy See favorable to the existence of a collaboration between two states, Israeli and Palestinian.”

The Israeli Embassy said that Katsav “promised that if there are no threats of terrorist operations, the army will withdraw from Bethlehem and that, in any case, the army will do everything possible to permit pilgrims to celebrate the festivities in an appropriate manner.”