Pope saw Mideast Trip as tone-setter, says Cardinal Sandri

(May 06,2009) Pope Benedict XVI's pilgrimage to the Holy Land this week, is something he has wanted to do since the beginning of his pontificate, said the prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches. Cardinal Leonardo Sandri spoke about the Pope's hopes for the pilgrimage, as he participated in a book launch in Rome. Though the Holy Father is headed to the Holy Land in the fifth year of his pontificate, Cardinal Sandri said that this pilgrimage was among the first the Pontiff wanted to make. "He had to make the trips that were already scheduled in the preceding pontificate," the cardinal explained, pointing to World Youth Day in Cologne and the World Meeting of Families in Spain. But, he added, the Pontiff's "great desire as a first trip, and as the meaning of the whole of his pontificate toward Jesus, was to go to the Holy Land.”
Cardinal Sandri reiterated the Pope’s intention to go to the Holy Land to promote peace. “With his presence, the Pope is a bearer of serenity and of peace and gives a push to all those who are in charge of the actuality or the situation of those people," the prelate said. "In this case, in the Holy Land, it implies an encouragement for the process of peace that has been so long and with so many difficulties," Cardinal Sandri said.