On pope’s trip to Israel, rabbi and sheik will be traveling companions

By Ruth Ellen GruberMay 19, 2014

Prilikom posjete Izraelu  Papini suputnici će biti i rabin i šeik

ROME (JTA) – With a rabbi and a Muslim sheik as his travel companions, Pope Francis is heading to the Middle East with what he hopes will be a powerful message of interfaith respect. It will be the first time that leaders of other faiths are part of an official papal delegation. The aim is to send “an extremely strong and explicit signal” about interfaith dialogue and the “normality” of having friends of other religions, chief Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters.

Papa Franjo će biti na čelu putovanja na Srednji istok  u pratnji rabina i muslimanskog šeika. Vjeruje se da će to biti moćna poruka za međureligijsku suradnju. To će biti prvi puta da su  lideri drugih vjera učesnici u službenoj papinskoj delegaciji. Namjera je da se " pošalje iznimno snažni  i jasni signal" o međureligijskom dijalogu i o "normalnosti" da se ima prijatelje iz drugih religija- rekao je glasnogovornik Vatikana Federico Lombardi. Posjeta će početi u subotu i trajati će tri dana za vrijeme kojih će Papa posjetiti Jordan, zapadnu obalu i Izrael. Program predviđa posjet vladinim liderima, misu na otvorenom, sastanak s Kršćanima, Muslimanima i židovskim religijskim predstavnicima,  te posjeta svetim mjestima svih triju religija.

Na svom slijedećem putu Papa je inzistorao da ne putuje u neprobojnom vozilu ili specijalnom "papamobilu",  nego u normalnom autu ili džipu s otvorenim krovom kako bi bio bliži ljudima i pozdravio ih... To če biti prilika sa se prodube važne bilateralne veze između Katolika i Židova i potaknu dijalozi među Katolicima, Židovima i Muslimanima .

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Francis will begin his trip in Jordan and proceed the next day by helicopter to Bethlehem for a 6 1/2-hour stay. He will meet there with Palestinian officials, celebrate an open-air Mass in Manger Square and visit with children from Palestinian refugee camps.

From Bethlehem, Francis will fly by helicopter to Ben Gurion Airport and then to Jerusalem. He will visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust center and the Western Wall, where like his predecessors Benedict XVI and John Paul II, he will leave a message in a crack between the stones.

The pope also will visit Christian sites and the Temple Mount, a site that is sacred to both Jews and Muslims and the locus of recent clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians protesting Jewish visitors.

The centerpiece of Francis’ stay will be his meeting with Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew and an ecumenical joint prayer service with leaders of other Christian churches in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

Papal visits to Israel, he said, demonstrate “the remarkable new Catholic and Christian positive affirmation of the roots of its identity and its commitment to the welfare of the Jewish people.”

Moreover, he said, “I greatly hope that there will still be an opportunity for an interfaith encounter with local representatives of the faiths communities in this land somewhere on the papal itinerary. I actually think that to bring along an Argentinian rabbi and imam is very nice, but if there is no interfaith meeting with the locals, it might be seen locally as rather disingenuous.”...