Word: vaticans
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Complicating matters for the planned papal trip was a remark by Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Office for Justice and Peace, who likened the situation in Gaza to a "concentration camp." Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor responded bluntly on Thursday. "We are astounded to hear from a spiritual dignitary words that are so far removed from truth and dignity," he was quoted as telling Reuters. "The vocabulary of Hamas propaganda, coming from a member of the College of Cardinals, is a shocking and disappointing phenomenon...
Nearly four years and 10 trips later, the visit was finally confirmed last month, even though some prickly bilateral issues between the 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...
After the first rounds of air strikes on Hamas targets, chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi had cautioned that it was "premature" to say whether the conflict would scuttle the trip. But church insiders now acknowledge that hopes for the planned visit are growing dimmer as the conflict deepens, with Israel's all-out air and ground assault on Gaza growing bloodier. "At the beginning, you could imagine [the war] not forcing the Pope to change his plans," says a well-placed Vatican insider who often travels to the region. "But it's clear now that everything would have...
...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 players, including Syria and Iran, to find what the Pope on Thursday called a "global approach" to a lasting Middle East peace...
...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 journey to Israel, long before the Vatican and the Jewish state had established diplomatic relations. When John Paul II went in 2000, it was a mix of pilgrimage and politics, with an inevitable emphasis on interreligious relations...