Hopes for Pope Francis as bridge builder in Middle East
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis’ “deep relationship with Jews in Buenos Aires” and his
close contact with communities of Middle Eastern immigrants to Argentina have given
the new pontiff a clear understanding of the urgent issues facing the Holy Land today.
That’s the view of Jesuit Fr David Neuhaus, patriarchal vicar for Hebrew-speaking
Catholic communities in Israel, who hopes the Holy Father will be able to build bridges
of mutual respect between all the different faith communities in the region. Fr
David was part of a delegation from the Jerusalem Patriarchate which met in audience
with Pope Francis on Monday. Philippa Hitchen spoke with him about the meeting and
about his hopes for the future of the Church in the Holy Land under this new pontificate….. Listen:
“We were presented
one by one to the Pope and when I came to him I underlined the fact that I’m a Jesuit
by saying, “here I am, representing the Hebrew-speaking communities, I’m a Jesuit
among diocesans and a Jew among Arabs”….and he smiled and turned to the Patriarch
and said, ‘Oh, another one who has the virus!’ And there was a clear sign of joy in
the eyes of the Pope to see there is another Jesuit, out there somewhere on the margins,
trying to serve the universal Church… The Pope coming from Latin America would
have been very much exposed to very large communities of Middle Easterners who live
in Latin America. In fact, for a time he was even charged as Ordinary for Eastern
rite Catholics in Buenos Aires…..he has already on various occasions manifested a
very strong solidarity with the Church in the Middle East…..this is a Pope who also
had a deep, deep relationship with Jews in Buenos Aires, so also from that point of
view of interreligious dialogue he seems to be very much understanding what’s going
on and what the issues are…… The Hebrew speaking community has an enormous mission,
we are few in numbers as Israeli citizens because the vast majority are really the
most marginalized, the foreign workers, the asylum seekers….we are working to establish
a presence in South Tel Aviv which is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Israel,
populated by those very people whom Pope Francis has made the centre…the poor, the
marginalized, those with no rights… Relations between the Holy See and Israel are
complex, the negotiations have been dragging on for a very long time….here again I
think Pope Francis’ directness, his honesty, his clear elaboration of what is going
on in any particular situation might indeed help untie some of the knots in these
negotiations….Of course relations with the State of Israel are intimately connected
with relations with the rest of the Middle East and we really hope that Pope Francis
will be able to be a bridge to bring the parties closer together, so that they will
adopt a discourse of respect and understanding of each other, so that Christians in
the Middle East can live in an atmosphere where peace and justice are part of their
daily lives….”