(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has announced his upcoming trip to the Holy Land just
one day after the 50th anniversary of the first ever papal trip to the
region. Pope Paul VI began his visit – which included the main holy sites in Bethlehem,
Jerusalem and Nazareth – on January 4th 1964. This was the first journey outside Italy
for a Pope who would eventually visit six continents and become the best-travelled
Pope in history up to that point, and also marked the first time a Roman Pontiff had
ever travelled by plane. Even more importantly, this historic pilgrimage marked a
fundamental shift in Catholic-Orthodox relations: Paul VI met with the head of the
Orthodox Church at the time, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras
I, in the Garden of Olives in Jerusalem, an encounter which led to the lifting of
the mutual excommunications declared after the East-West Schism in 1054.
No
less historic was the following papal visit the to Holy Land, made by Pope John Paul
II during the Jubilee year 2000. This visit was undertaken both as a personal, spiritual
pilgrimage to the roots of faith, and as a diplomatic visit intended to promote reconciliation
between Christians, Muslims and Jews living side by side in the Middle East. Among
the most memorable images from this trip is the moment when John Paul II prayed at
the so-called Wailing Wall in the traditional Jewish way, leaving a written prayer
in one of its cracks. Remarkably, this prayer contained a plea for God’s forgiveness
for Christian sins against the Jewish people.
Pope Benedict XVI followed
his predecessors to Jerusalem in May 2009, visiting, among other sites, the Yad Vashem
Holocaust memorial. There he met with Holocaust survivors, and said the Church must
help ensure that hatred is never allowed to reign again.
Paul VI, John
Paul II and Benedict XVI all made their own visits to the Holy Land moments of historic
importance, and so, undoubtedly, will Pope Francis. However, this won’t be the first
time the Pope has visited the region: Jose Maria Bergoglio flew to Israel in October
1973, as part of a course he was following in preparation for his new job as Jesuit
Provincial Superior in Argentina.