VATICAN CITY- In an effort to re-launch Middle East peace talks, Pope Francis invited Palestine president, Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli president, Shimon Peres to the Vatican for a prayer of peace.
The invitation took place just weeks after the U.S. sponsored peace negotiations collapsed.
The invitation comes at a time where animosity is mounting over a rising Palestinian unity government that Israel will not accept because the government has the support of Hamas, the Islamic group running Gaza that Israel accuses of being terrorists.
To add to the animosity, Israel is building more homes in the occupied West Bank, angering the Palestinians and deterring the peace process.
Last month, on a trip to the Holy Land, Pope Francis invited the leaders to Vatican City for prayer, a move that energized many Palestinians, but caused anger among Israelis. During his visit, Francis made an unplanned stop to pray at the wall Israel built to block out Palestine’s West Bank, a move that many thought showed sympathy to Palestinians and further angered Israelis.
Vatican officials have insisted that Pope Francis has no political agenda in inviting the Middle East leaders to pray at his home. His only hope is to re-kindle a desire for peace.
“This pray meeting will not be for mediation to find solutions,” Pope Francis said. “We are just meeting up to pray, and then everyone goes home.” Francis said it would be “crazy” to expect any mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, many officials think the meeting has potential significance beyond just symbolism, as it shows Pope Francis as a leader who is willing to forgo normal diplomatic and theological protocol and go out on a limb for the sake of peace.
“In the Middle East, symbolic gestures and incremental steps are important,” said Rev. Thomas Reese, a veteran Vatican analyst for the National Catholic Reporter. “Who knows what conversations can occur behind closed doors in the Vatican.”
Abbas and Peres embraced in the foyer of the Vatican hotel and joked together before sitting on either side of Pope Francis in the Vatican prayer garden for an hour-long invocation of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim prayers delivered in English, Hebrew, Arabic, and Italian. The men also planted an olive tree in the garden as a sign of peace.
The prayers focused on three themes common to each of the religions: thanking God for creation, seeking forgiveness for past wrongdoing, and praying to God to bring peace to the region
Francis told the two men, who first signed the Oslo peace accords in 1993, that he hoped this meeting would ignite a “new journey” towards peace. Francis further said that too many children have died from war and violence and that their memory should now instill thoughts of patience, strength, and coexistence.
“Peacemaking calls for courage much more than warfare,” Francis said. “It calls for the courage to say yes to encounter and no to conflict.”
For more information see:
Al-Jazeera- Pope Leads Israeli-Palestinian Peace Prayer– 8 June 2014
CBC News- Pope Francis holds symbolic peace prayers with Middle East leaders– 8 June 2014
Daily Mail- Pope Francis embraces divided Middle East leaders and presides over Christian, Jewish and Muslim prayers at Vatican in bid to revive collapsed peace talks– 8 June 2014
CBC News- The Pope’s modest “prayer meeting” for the Middle East– 7 June 2014
