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Building Bridges of
Lasting Friendship
Seven days spent in the places where the event that changed the history of the world happened: encouragement for the little Christian community, renewed bonds with the Jewish people, and an appeal to Muslims for the free use of reason… In a land riddled with divisions, all of the Pope’s actions and words affirmed the only way towards real peace.

by Giorgio Paolucci

The Shepherd went to see his little flock. He took them by the hand and restored their courage, bringing them the embrace of the universal Church–so important for those who live the syndrome of a surrounded minority–and he re-launched them in the mission of being faithful to the event that generated them. At the same time, he held out his hand as a friend to Jews and Muslims, who share day-to-day life with the Christians in a land they all consider holy. An assessment of the journey–the most difficult of his pontificate–made May 8th–15th by Pope Benedict XVI in Jordan, Israel and the Territories governed by the Palestinian National Authority can be made only bearing in mind the main goal the successor of Peter had set himself: to confirm his people in the faith and bring a message of peace and hope in a land riddled with divisions, where the prospect of a real change always seems far off.

Living stones. The Pope appealed to the Christian community–now reduced to less than 2% of the total population and who feel the increasing temptation to migrate to safer havens–to recognize unity as the gift of Christ and he encouraged them to stay, so that the places where the event that changed the history of the world was manifested not become a museum in which the living stones give way to mere archaeological remains.
“Do not be afraid,” he said in Manger Square. “Count on the prayers and solidarity of your brothers and sisters in the universal Church, and work, with concrete initiatives, to consolidate your presence and to offer new possibilities to those tempted to leave. Be a bridge of dialogue and constructive cooperation in the building of a culture of peace to replace the present stalemate of fear, aggression and frustration. Build up your local Churches, making them workshops of dialogue, tolerance and hope, as well as solidarity and practical charity.”

Common roots. On the first day of his visit, the Pope and the Israeli President planted an olive tree in the garden of the presidential palace. Recalling this fact at the moment of his departure, Benedict XVI reconfirmed the bonds that history has forged between the Church and the Jewish People: “We are nourished from the same spiritual roots. We meet as brothers, brothers who at times in our history have had a tense relationship, but now are firmly committed to building bridges of lasting friendship.” When he visited the Holocaust memorial, he paid homage, as he had already done recently, to the sacrifice of millions of Jews forced to write one of the most bloody chapters of recent history, a chapter that–he warned during the address made at the end of his visit, replying implicitly to the criticisms of those who had accused him of undervaluing the Shoah–“must never be forgotten or denied.” Rather, it can become an opportunity for building new concord: “Those dark memories should strengthen our determination to draw closer to one another as branches of the same olive tree, nourished from the same roots and united in brotherly love.”

The exaltation of reason. In the seven days he spent in the Holy Land, the Pope entered a mosque twice. As he had done in Regensburg in 2006, to the astonishment and deliberate misunderstanding of those who had not paid attention to the cogent logic of his words, he re-proposed reason as the privileged terrain for an encounter with the Islamic world. In his meeting with the Muslim leaders in Amman’s Mosque al-Hussein bin Talal, he recalled, “As believers in the one God we know that human reason is itself God’s gift and that it soars to its highest plane when suffused with the light of God’s truth.” This reason, however, must walk side by side with freedom. “Those who honor the One God believe that he will hold human beings accountable for their actions. Christians assert that the divine gifts of reason and freedom stand at the basis of this accountability. Reason opens the mind to grasp the shared nature and common destiny of the human family, while freedom moves the heart to accept the other and serve him in charity. Undivided love for the One God and charity towards one’s neighbor thus become the fulcrum around which all else turns.”

The wall in people’s hearts. The pilgrimage of faith and of religious and cultural dialogue could not avoid tackling the treacherous reefs of politics, which is daily bread in these parts where living together is so precarious. The most evident bone of contention is the wall built by Israel as a defense against terrorist attacks, but which has made daily life complicated and at times impossible for thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank. The Pope said, “It is tragic to see walls still being erected,” and he expressed the hope that the wall would soon be removed. At the same time, he observed, “First, though, it is necessary to remove the walls that we build around our hearts.” He noted during his final address, “One of the saddest sights for me during my visit to these lands was the wall. As I passed alongside it, I prayed for a future in which the peoples of the Holy Land can live together in peace and harmony without the need for such instruments of security and separation, but rather respecting and trusting one another, and renouncing all forms of violence and aggression.”

To read more about Benedict XVI’ addresses during his visit to the Holy Land, see pages 50-51.
The Pope in the Holy Land