Osservatore Romano/Reuters
Pope Visits Tomb of Zionism’s Founder
By
JERUSALEM — Making history for the second day running,
Pope Francis laid a wreath Monday on the grave of the founder of
Zionism, becoming the first pope to do so, a gesture of support to
Israel after several symbolic signals the day before that lent a
spiritual lift to Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty.
At
the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Francis added to his
marathon morning in Jerusalem a stop at an Israeli memorial to victims
of terrorist attacks, offering some counterbalance to the powerful lift
he provided to Palestinians with an unscheduled stop Sunday at the
concrete barrier dividing Bethlehem from Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu told
the pope that building the barrier, which snakes along and through the
West Bank, “prevented many more victims that Palestinian terror, which
continues today, planned to harm.”
The prime minister pointed out the portion of the memorial, comprising 78 tablets, that commemorates the 85 people killed in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center
in the pope’s native Buenos Aires. “Terrorism is evil, in the origin
and in the result — in the origin because it comes from hate, and in the
result because it does not build but destroys,” Francis said at the
site. “No more terrorism. This is a way that has no end.”
Later,
before his one-on-one meeting with the pope, Mr. Netanyahu said there
would be “no need” for the barrier if anti-Israel “incitement” and
terrorism ceased. “I long for the day in which Pope Francis’ call to
recognize the state of Israel, the right of the Jews to a state of their
own, to live in security and peace, will be accepted by our neighbors,”
he said. “This will bring, if not peace on earth, then at least peace
in this part of the earth.”
The
memorial was one of several symbolic sites where the pope stopped
Monday. He removed his shoes to enter the Dome of the Rock, part of what
Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary and Jews call the Temple Mount. He
stood for several minutes with his right palm on the ancient stones of
the Western Wall before placing a handwritten note — the prayer “Our
Father,” in Spanish — between them.
At
the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, he kissed the hands of six Holocaust
survivors — one saved as a baby by a Catholic family — as he heard
their specific stories, and, echoing a Jewish mantra, said, “Never
again, Lord, never again!”
“A
great evil has befallen us, such as never happened under the heavens,”
Francis said, quoting the Bible in remarks part prayer and part poetry.
“Grant us the grace to be ashamed of what we men have done.”
He
also had a lengthy chat with President Shimon Peres of Israel, who has
accepted his invitation for a peace-prayer summit meeting with President
Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority at the Vatican next month.
Asked
why Francis had invited Mr. Peres, whose position is largely
ceremonial, rather than Mr. Netanyahu, who is Mr. Abbas’s counterpart in
peace talks, the Vatican spokesman said that the pope and the Israeli
president had developed a warm relationship of “great esteem” and that
Mr. Peres had urged him with “great insistence” to visit the Holy Land
before his term expires in July.
“The
pope has with President Peres a good feeling, this is clear,” the
spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters at a news
conference late Sunday. “This is not an exclusion of the other, but
there are good premises to pray together with President Peres and
Mahmoud Abbas.”
The
crammed morning schedule — nine stops in five hours — started the final
leg of the 77-year-old pontiff’s three-day sojourn in the Holy Land,
which the Vatican had described as a “purely religious” pilgrimage but
in which he waded pointedly into the politics of the region.
On
Sunday, Francis became the first pope to travel directly into
Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory and to call it the “State of
Palestine,” affirming the 2012 United Nations resolution upgrading its status.
An unscheduled stop provided the defining image of the day, when the
pope touched his forehead to the barrier dividing Bethlehem from
Jerusalem. Israel calls the barrier essential for its security, while
Palestinians loathe it as a symbol of the way the occupation restricts
their daily lives.
The
itinerary on Monday offered something of a counterpoint, particularly
the visit to the grave of Theodor Herzl, whose appeal to Pope Pius X
when they met 110 years ago for help in establishing a Jewish state was
harshly rejected, with Pius suggesting that Jews convert to
Christianity. Flanked by Mr. Peres and Mr. Netanyahu, Francis placed a
large ring of yellow and white flowers — Vatican colors — atop the large
square tomb, then added a stone, following a Jewish custom, and bowed
his head for several minutes.
Stops
at Herzl’s grave have recently been added to the routine protocol for
visiting heads of state, but Mr. Netanyahu nonetheless embraced Francis’
visit there as a significant step, telling the pope at Sunday’s welcome
ceremony in Tel Aviv, “We admired and appreciate your decision.”
In previous papal pilgrimages, the Israel portion of the itinerary proved politically charged.
In
1964, Paul VI outraged Israelis by arriving from Jordan through
Megiddo, in the north, rather than Jerusalem. “He spent 11 hours in the
country and never mentioned the word ‘Israel,' ” said Amnon Ramon, a
professor of comparative religions at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
“It left a sour feeling.”
John Paul II’s visit in 2000 “was a huge revolution,” Dr. Ramon said, particularly his placement of a note committing “to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant” between the stones of the Western Wall.
But Pope Benedict XVI, a German who had been a member of Hitler Youth, angered Israelis in 2009
by failing to apologize in a speech at the Yad Vashem Holocaust
Memorial. Father Lombardi pointed out that, unlike Benedict, Francis was
careful to say specifically that six million Jews had been killed and
to use the Hebrew word for the Holocaust, “Shoah.”
Francis
also joined the Israeli leaders in condemning Saturday’s killing of at
least three people outside the Jewish museum in Brussels, which he
called a “criminal act of anti-Semitic hatred.”
Pope
Francis, who pleased Jews worldwide by promising to open the church’s
archives from the Holocaust era, traveled with a rabbi from Buenos Aires
with whom he has written a book and recorded hours of televised
conversation. (He also brought an Islamic scholar from Argentina.)
On
Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu described Francis’ “special bond with the Jewish
nation” and called the visit “a very important chapter in the
relationship between Jews and Christians” that dates back two
millenniums.
Correction: May 26, 2014
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misidentified Pope Francis’s location. He was praying after laying a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, not the grave of Theodor Herzl.
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misidentified Pope Francis’s location. He was praying after laying a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, not the grave of Theodor Herzl.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário