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Pope, in Mideast, Stresses Urgency of Solving Crises Pope Calls for Solutions to Conflicts in Mideast Visit
(about 7 hours later)
AMMAN, Jordan — Pope Francis called “urgently” on Saturday for a “peaceful solution” to the Syrian crisis and a “just solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as he started a three-day sojourn through the Holy Land at a time of regional turmoil and tension. ON THE EAST BANK OF THE JORDAN RIVER — After visiting a site on Saturday where Jesus is believed to have been baptized, Pope Francis spoke about Jesus’s humility, “the fact that he bends down to wounded humanity in order to heal us.”
Reiterating a theme of his 15-month-old papacy, Francis praised Jordan for providing a “generous welcome” to refugees from “neighboring Syria, ravaged by a conflict which has lasted all too long.” He expressed “deep regret” for the “continuing grave tensions in the Middle East,” and, detouring from his prepared remarks, said, “May God protect us from the fear of change.” So when some burly men prepared to carry a doctor in a wheelchair up four steps to the stage for a blessing, perhaps it should have come as no surprise that Francis, whose young papacy has been defined by humble populism, instead rose from his gilded chair and walked down to embrace the doctor where she was.
An afternoon Mass at a soccer stadium provided the largest crowd Francis will see on the trip, though perhaps half its 30,000 seats remained empty. On a stage festooned with fabric in the Vatican’s yellow and white colors, the populist pope spoke in his trademark undertone, and told the seminarians and children in the crowd, “I want to hug all of you.” That warm, intimate moment at Bethany Beyond the Jordan, a national park near the baptismal spot, capped the first day of the pontiff’s three-day sojourn through a Holy Land filled with tension and surrounded by turmoil.
“Peace is not something which can be bought,” Francis said in his homily, delivered in Italian and then in Arabic by a local cleric. “It is a gift to be sought patiently and to be crafted through the actions, great and small, of our everyday lives.” Earlier, Francis made an urgent appeal for a “peaceful solution” to the Syrian civil war and a “just solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and said during Mass at a soccer stadium: “Peace is not something which can be bought. It is a gift to be sought patiently and to be crafted through the actions, great and small, of our everyday lives.”
The pope spoke to about 200 invited guests — many of them Christian dignitaries in elaborate costume — at the royal palace at an afternoon welcome ceremony. King Abdullah II told the pope his “humanity and wisdom can make a special contribution” to helping Jordan and other countries where Syrian refugees have settled, as well as in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. Francis repeatedly praised Jordan for hosting 600,000 refugees of the Syrian crisis, and pointedly urged world powers “not to leave Jordan alone in the task of meeting the humanitarian emergency.” Detouring from his prepared remarks at the baptismal site, the pope demanded, “Who is selling these weapons that are feeding war?”
“The status quo of justice denied to the Palestinians, fear of the other, fear of change — these are the way to mutual ruin, not mutual respect,” the king said. “Together, we can help leaders on both sides take the courageous steps needed, for peace, justice and coexistence.” “Let’s pray for these criminals who are selling weapons, fueling hatred, that they will convert,” he said under the large stone dome of a church still under construction at a huge national park Jordan is developing to attract Christian tourists. “May everyone get over this idea that problems can be solved with weapons.”
Francis is the fourth pope to visit the Holy Land, making what he described as a “strictly religious” pilgrimage that is focused on a meeting Sunday with the Patriarch of Constantinople to mark the 50th anniversary of a historic Catholic-Orthodox reconciliation. But the itinerary is laced with political minefields, particularly given last month’s collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and the raging Syrian civil war. Francis is the fourth pope to visit the Holy Land, for what he has described as a “strictly religious” pilgrimage focused on a meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday with the Patriarch of Constantinople to mark the 50th anniversary of a historic reconciliation between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. But the itinerary is laced with political minefields, particularly given last month’s collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which loomed over even the less-troubled landscape here in Jordan.
On Sunday morning, Francis is to become the first pope to travel directly from Jordan to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He will meet President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority as a peer head of state, underscoring the Vatican’s support for the 2012 United Nations resolution upgrading the Palestinians’ status. Palestinians have trumpeted the visit to the “State of Palestine,” as the Vatican website also describes it, and will use Francis’s time in Bethlehem to highlight hardships under Israeli occupation. “The status quo of justice denied to the Palestinians, fear of the other, fear of change — these are the way to mutual ruin, not mutual respect,” Jordan’s King Abdullah II said earlier in a palace ceremony in Amman, the capital, before about 200 diplomats and Christian dignitaries. “Together, we can help leaders on both sides take the courageous steps needed, for peace, justice and coexistence.”
Francis will also be the first pontiff to lay a wreath on the grave of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, a boon to Israelis more than a century after Pope Pius X harshly rejected Herzl’s appeal for support. And on Monday, he is to say Mass on Mount Zion, claimed as both the site of the Last Supper and the tomb of King David, a plan that has ignited anti-Christian graffiti and protests from religious Jews. The pope, again going off script, responded, “May God protect us from the fear of change.”
Here in Jordan, where 10,000 officers were deployed to safeguard the streets for the visit, the landscape is less fraught. On Sunday morning, Francis is to become the first pope to travel directly into the Israeli-occupied West Bank, underscoring the Vatican’s support for the 2012 United Nations resolution making Palestine a nonmember observer state. Palestinians have trumpeted the visit to the “State of Palestine,” as the Vatican website also describes it, and will use the pope’s time in Bethlehem to highlight hardships under Israeli occupation.
The palace hopes to focus attention on the influx of more than 600,000 Syrian war refugees, which has overwhelmed Jordanian cities and strained water, health and educational resources. He will also be the first pontiff to lay a wreath on the grave of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, a boon to Israelis more than a century after Pope Pius X harshly rejected Herzl’s appeal for support. And he is scheduled to say Mass on Mount Zion, claimed as both the tomb of King David and as the site of the Last Supper, a plan that has ignited anti-Christian graffiti and protests from religious Jews.
Jordan is also counting on the pope’s sunset prayers at Bethany Beyond the Jordan, where some believe Jesus was baptized, to help a lagging tourism industry. Here in Jordan, where 10,000 officers were deployed to safeguard the streets for the visit, Saturday’s schedule was less packed — as was the 30,000-person-capacity stadium, where half the seats stayed empty through a sedate service. The crowd cheered as a rosary-like ring of pink balloons escaped into the air before Francis arrived, but there was little electricity in the air as the pope presided from a platform festooned with fabric of the Vatican’s signature yellow and white.
About 90,000 pilgrims visited Bethany last year, compared with 430,000 who stopped at an Israeli park on the other side of Jordan River that offers a rival claim as the baptism site described in the New Testament. Francis is the third pope to visit Bethany, and the Jordanians are promoting a website filled with biblical, archaeological and other evidence that theirs is the authentic spot. More than 1,000 schoolchildren received their first communion, including 10-year-old Jude Handel, who said in anticipation, “The pope is the king of all Christians in the world.”
The trip is both a showcase and a test for Francis, 77, who has so far thrilled the faithful with his humility, warmth and disregard for Vatican formality. His popularity began practically before the white smoke declaring his election had cleared, when he greeted throngs in St. Peter’s Square with a simple “good evening.” He lives in modest quarters and on this trip refused armored vehicles and brought a trimmed-down entourage. The trip is both a showcase and a test for Francis, 77, whose low-key manner has thrilled the faithful. His popularity began practically before the white smoke declaring his election had cleared, when he greeted throngs in St. Peter’s Square with a simple, “Good evening.” He lives in modest quarters, and on this trip refused armored vehicles and brought a trimmed-down entourage.
Refugees have been a particular concern of the pope. His first official trip was to the tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, a gateway to Europe for thousands of desperate asylum seekers. He later suggested that empty church buildings could house refugees, and visited a Rome refugee center, where he spoke with a Syrian family. Refugees have been a prime concern. His first official trip was to the tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, a gateway to Europe for thousands of desperate asylum seekers. He later suggested that empty church buildings could house refugees, and decried the “globalization of indifference” regarding Syria.
Francis, who was scheduled to meet Saturday evening with several hundred refugee children from Syria and Iraq, has decried the “globalization of indifference” to the humanitarian crisis in and around Syria, and he has refused to resign himself to the flight of Christians from the Middle East. It was here on the riverbank, after bending down to touch the water and writing a lengthy message in the park’s guest book, that the pope was most passionate and personal. He clutched the gold cross around his neck as children sang about the Virgin Mary. A young woman who said she had ranked third in the country on her baccalaureate exams draped a red-and-white checked scarf tipped with Jordanian flags around his neck.
Shamon Bahnan, who fled Syria with his wife and son in October and has been staying at a church in downtown Amman, welcomed the pope’s visit but worried that he might publicly urge Christians to stay in the region. A desert wind blew through open stone archways as the sun set outside. The exuberant crowd was a mosaic of diverse headwear: cardinals and bishops in red and pink skullcaps, women in patterned headscarves, boys in baseball hats. “Vive il Papa!” they chanted, waving flags of Jordan, the Vatican, Syria and Iraq.
“That will ruin it for us,” said Mr. Bahnan, 60, who hopes to emigrate to Sweden or Belgium. “European countries will close their doors on us. I can’t stay living in these conditions, and I can’t go back.” An 11-year-old boy in jeans and a short-sleeved button-down shirt took the microphone and told how he learned he had leukemia two years before.
At the stadium, thousands of refugees, Jordanians and pilgrims from Europe awaiting the pope cheered as a rosary-like ring of pink balloons escaped into the air. Among them were more than 1,000 schoolchildren who later lined up to take their first communion. “I prayed that my hair would not fall,” he said. “Though my doctors told me it would, God answered my prayers and I did not lose it.
The empty seats were a reminder of the Middle East’s rapidly dwindling Christian population. “I kept hearing a voice saying I am special and unequal,” the boy added. “I thank God, my doctors, and my parents.”
“Christians are the first to pay the price of instability,” said Juliana Muni, 27, who came to Jordan six months ago from Iraq.
Francesca Osbaldeston, 64, a retired teacher, said she and a friend had traveled from England to Amman “to tell the Christians of the Middle East we haven’t forgotten them.”