Pontiff Calls for Halt to Violence in Holy Land

(Nov. 6, 2006) Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday appealed to Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and to the international community as a whole, to put an end to the bloodshed in the Holy Land. After praying the midday Angelus with several thousand people gathered in St. Peter's Square, the Pope said that he follows "with profound concern the news on the serious deterioration of the situation in the Gaza Strip."
He also expressed his "closeness to the civilian populations suffering the consequences of the violence." The three Palestinian militias that are holding Israeli soldier Guilad Shalit threatened to kill him if Israel does not halt immediately its military offensive in the northern Gaza Strip. News agencies report that at least 48 Palestinians have died since Nov. 1, in this new Israeli military operation in Gaza. The operation seeks to reduce the offensive capacity of the militias that fire rockets into Israeli territory. Benedict XVI invited believers worldwide to join him in prayer "so that Almighty and Merciful God will illuminate the Israeli and Palestinian authorities." The Pope's prayer for divine illumination is also for "those nations that have a particular responsibility in the region, so that they will commit themselves to halt the bloodshed, to multiply initiatives of humanitarian help, and favour the immediate resumption of a direct, serious and concrete negotiation."
Before praying the Angelus, the Pope had shared a reflection on the theme of death in the context of the November 2 All Souls Day, when the church and the faithful remember the departed. He noted that it is "an appropriate occasion to remember our loved ones in prayer and to meditate on the reality of death, which the 'civilization of comfort' often tries to remove from people's conscientiousness, immersed in the concerns of daily life." Sometimes "the loss of a loved one makes us discover the 'problem,' making us feel death as a radically hostile presence contrary to our natural vocation to life and happiness." But Jesus, with his teaching, especially by facing death himself, revolutionized the meaning of death," the Holy Father said. In this way, the Son of God wished to share our human condition to the end, to open it to hope. Ultimately, the Pope said, he was born to be able to die and in this way to free us from the slavery of death.