Word: benediction
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Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's election, a Vatican Cardinal close to the Pontiff predicted that a Holy Land pilgrimage would be the first or second trip on the new papal itinerary. "It will happen soon," the Cardinal told me privately. "He very badly wants...
...Holy See and the Israeli government remained unresolved. But as Israel's assault on Gaza reaches the two-week mark, Vatican diplomats now say the long-anticipated journey (with planned stops in Israel, the West Bank and Jordan) is increasingly at risk of being canceled. (See pictures of Benedict XVI's first year...
...Palestinian death toll has topped 700, according to U.N. and other sources in Gaza, while 11 Israelis have been killed, eight of them soldiers. Meanwhile, worldwide calls for a cease-fire - including repeated pleas from Benedict - have come to naught. On Thursday, during his annual address to the international diplomatic corps assigned to the Holy See, the Pope said that "military options are no solution and that violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned." The Vatican has long called for a negotiated settlement and wants Israel and the U.S. to engage other regional...
...argue that Pius failed to use his moral power to denounce the atrocities. Catholic leaders are pushing for Pius to be made a saint of the church, saying he was one of the 20th century's great Popes and that he did what was possible during the Nazi occupation. Benedict has given mixed signals as to whether he will forge ahead with the cause for beatification - the last step before sainthood...
...debate over these historical matters may become moot if the current conflict continues and the trip to Israel gets shelved. Less politically oriented than his immediate predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict finds his comfort zone when reflecting on church history and digging into Christian theology. Having already written during his papacy a best-selling scholarly treatise on Jesus, Benedict had envisioned his trip to the holy sites in the Middle East as above all a pilgrimage to the birthplace of his faith. Such was the case in 1964 when Pope Paul VI visited holy sites on the first papal...