PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND - May 8-15, 2009

This AP story actually wraps up most of the Pope's second day in Israel, but leads off with the Yad Vashem fallout and the Vatican reaction. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, MSM do have the power to shape reporting of the news - and that way, the news itself - because they call the shots, as it were, for the rest of media to follow.



Vatican defends Pope Benedict
from Israeli criticism
By JOSEF FEDERMAN


JERUSALEM, May 12 (AP) — The Vatican defended the Pope today from a growing chorus of Israeli critics who accused the German-born Benedict XVI of failing to express enough remorse for the Holocaust — a controversy that threatened to eclipse a papal pilgrimage aimed at building bridges between faiths.

The Pope delivered messages of peace while visiting the holiest Muslim and Jewish sites in Jerusalem — the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall.

But his speech Monday at Israel’s national Holocaust memorial attracted the most attention in Israel, with the parliament speaker accusing Benedict of glossing over the Nazi genocide.

Newspapers lambasted him for failing to apologize for what many in Israel see as Catholic indifference during World War II and the Pope’s own wartime actions — he served [INVOLUNTARILY!] in the Hitler Youth corps and Nazi army — have also cast a shadow. [It is completely irresponsible of teh editors at AP not to have added an Editor's Note to make it clear that this all happened to a teenager who was conscripted [that's forced labor!] like his other contemporaries!]

“The Pope spoke like a historian, as somebody observing from the sidelines, about things that shouldn’t happen. But what can you do? He was part of them,” said Parliament Speaker Reuven Rivlin. “With all due respect to the Holy See, we cannot ignore the baggage he carries with him.”

The Pope delivered an emotional address at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, saying the cry of those killed by the regime under which he grew up “still echoes in our hearts.”

But only moments after he spoke, Yad Vashem’s top two officials criticized him for failing to use the words “Nazis” or “murder” in his speech.

Israeli newspapers today were filled with criticism.

“One would have expected the Vatican’s cardinals to prepare a more intelligent text for their boss,” columnist Tom Segev said. [IGNORANT BIGOT, who piles inslt on injury by feigning he does not know the Pope writes his own speeches.]

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi defended Benedict, saying the Pope had mentioned his German roots previously, specifically when visiting a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, in 2005 and at the Auschwitz death camp the following year.

“He can’t mention everything every time he speaks,” Lombardi told reporters in Jerusalem. [And it's not as if there is anyone who does not know he is German! And yet, vfrom what I read, even Italian TV commentators have been unnecessarily offensive by referring to him all the time on this coverage as the German Pope.

The Holocaust is an extremely sensitive subject in Israel. The Jewish state was founded in the wake of the Nazi genocide of 6 million European Jews, and more than 200,000 elderly Holocaust survivors live in Israel.

The Vatican’s wartime Pope, Pius XII, has been criticized by Jews for doing little to prevent the Holocaust — a charge the Church denies. ['To prevent the Holocaust"! Now they're escalating the responsibility they're imposing unilaterally on Pius XII. As if there were any one signle agency that could have done that under the circumstances then - let alone the Pope 'who has no divisions' and whose moral authority had no meaning at all to Hitler and his band of amoral thugs!]

Benedict’s wartime history is discomforting in Israel, even though he has explained that he was forced to join Hitler Youth and that he later deserted the military.

More recently, he upset Jewish leaders by revoking the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop. The Pope has acknowledged mistakes in the case [Communications mistakes, not the excommunication recall itself, to which Williamson's opinions about history are completely irrelevant] and the bishop remains barred from rejoining the Catholic clergy. [Dear Lord, this reporter does not care if he does not know whereof he speaks!]

At his news conference, Lombardi claimed Benedict was never in the Hitler Youth. However, the Pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said in a 1997 book that he joined the movement when membership was compulsory. [This story just get more muddled. Can Fr. Lombardi have said what he is claimed to have said? And note the semantic crafting of "he joined the movement when membership was compulsory" to the simpler "He had no choice but to obey a compulsory order."]

In his first speech after arriving in Israel Monday, the Pope pledged to remember the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust and condemned anti-Semitism. And at Yad Vashem, the 82-year-old Pontiff met with elderly Holocaust survivors before delivering an eloquent speech.

“May the names of these victims never perish. May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten,” Benedict, not known for his emotional displays, said in hushed tones.

Some survivors welcomed the speech, even if they felt it didn’t go far enough. The “Pope is not the president of a Zionist organization, so why should we have any complaints toward him,” Noah Frug, the head of a survivors’ group, told the Ynet Web site.

Benedict has made reconciliation a major theme of his five-day pilgrimage to Israel and the West Bank. He took this message to the most contentious religious site the Holy Land today, urging Israel and the Palestinians to engage in “a sincere dialogue aimed at building a world of justice and peace.”

The Pope visited the Dome of the Rock, where Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven, and the adjacent Western Wall, revered by Jews as a remnant of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.

Competing claims to the hilltop compound — known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and Jews as the Temple Mount — have sparked violence in the past. Resolving the dispute has been the most intractable issue during more than 15 years of on-and-off Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

The visit included a private meeting with the top Islamic cleric in the Holy Land, the Grand Mufti Mohammed Hussein.

Hussein said afterward that he told the Pope of the Palestinians’ suffering “and we asked for justice in this Holy Land.” He also handed the Pope a letter urging the Vatican to use its influence to end Israel’s “aggression” against the Palestinians. Asked how the Pope responded, he replied, “We felt he was receptive.”

[The Pope must also have thought of Palestinian terrorist aggression agains Israelis, even if to hear the Palestinians -and even Mons. Twal - one would think Israel has never been the victim of Palestinian aggression: either that, or that they feel it is perfectly all right for Palestinians to target Israeli civilians with suicide bombers, but wrong for the Israelis to defend their country legitimately against terrorist bombers (through the Fence] and through military action against Hamas aggression [daily rocket attacks against Israel's southeren cities

What has consistently been evident in any discussion or reporting of teh Isralei-Palestinian conflict is that very few can look at the situation objectively and see that there is right and wrong on each side, as there always is in human affairs. But moral discernment is necessarily lost the moment one takes sides.].

Benedict angered many in the Muslim world three years ago when he quoted a medieval text that characterized some of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad’s teachings as “evil and inhuman,” particularly “his command to spread by the sword the faith.” He later expressed regret that his comments offended Muslims.

At the Dome of the Rock, the most sacred Muslim shrine in Jerusalem and part of the compound that is Islam’s third-holiest site, the Pope removed his red shoes before entering as a sign of respect. A priest helped him slip them back on as he left.

At the Western Wall, Benedict inserted a note between the ancient crevices of the Western Wall, the last remnant of the second of two biblical temples and Judaism’s holiest shrine.

The written blessing asked “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” to “hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family.”

At the Dome of the Rock, the most sacred Muslim shrine in Jerusalem and part of the compound that is Islam’s third-holiest site, the pope removed his red shoes before entering as a sign of respect. A priest helped him slip them back on as he left.

At the Western Wall, Benedict inserted a note between the ancient crevices of the Western Wall, the last remnant of the second of two biblical temples and Judaism’s holiest shrine.

The written blessing asked “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” to “hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family.”

Simpson has since added the following paragraphs to complete his account of the day:

Later Tuesday, the Pope told Israel's two chief rabbis that the Roman Catholic Church is "irrevocably committed" to "a genuine and lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews.

One of the rabbis, Yona Metzger, welcomed the interfaith efforts. "We must continue on this path and teach leaders of the other faiths that not by terror will they achieve their aims," he said.

Jews suffered centuries of persecution at the hands of the church, which traditionally held them responsible for rejecting and killing Jesus. The church disavowed that view in the 1960s, rejected anti-Semitism and started dialogue with other religions.

Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, made huge strides in the relationship, asking forgiveness on several occasions, including during his landmark 2000 trip to Israel, for the wrongs inflicted by Christians on Jews.

On Tuesday, Benedict also visited the traditional site of the Last Supper, where he received a warm welcome from some 400 Catholic clergy and worshippers at the Latin Patriarchate.

The pontiff arrived in his popemobile for an outdoor Mass next to the Garden of Gethsemane, the site where Christianity says Jesus was arrested. Happy crowds cheered and surged around the vehicle, and the pontiff smiled and waved.

But there, too, politics intruded when Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, a Palestinian, told the gathering that Jesus is still weeping over Israeli injustices to Palestinians in Jerusalem.

[Frankly, I was shocked by Mons. Twal's openly partisan speech openlng the Papal Mass, using the strongest words to denounce Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. I felt it was out of place during the Holy Father's pilgrimage for peace and reconciliation.

And while I understand that he is entitled to have his personal political opinions, it is not his business to involve the Church in partisan politics. Even if he thinks it concerns only his own local Church, does he think that such a high-visibility attack on Israel is going to make the Israelis more lenient or generous in the pending Church status talks that have gone nowhere in 13 years? He is the pastor for all Christians in his diocese, not only of the Palestinians.

Besides, he already got more than enough international media play in the days preceding the Pope's arrival, saying the same things he said today in interviews he granted right and left. [Which were equally wrong in principle, but at least he was not doing it at a Papal Mass). It was wrong to avail of the Papal Mass for this purpose.]