Pope Calls For Palestinian State

In Israel, Also Pledges To "Honor The Memory" Of The 6 Million Jewish Holocaust Victims

(CBS/AP)  Pope Benedict XVI called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian homeland immediately after he arrived in Israel Monday, a stance that could put him at odds with his hosts on a trip aimed at easing strains between the Vatican and Jews.

The pope also took on the delicate issue of the Holocaust, pledging to "honor the memory" of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide at the start of his five-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Benedict urged Israelis and Palestinians to "explore every possible avenue" to resolve their differences in remarks at the airport after he landed.

"The hopes of countless men, women and children for a more secure and stable future depend on the outcome of negotiations for peace," he said. "In union with people of good will everywhere, I plead with all those responsible to explore every possible avenue in the search for a just resolution of the outstanding difficulties, so that both peoples may live in peace in a homeland of their own within secure and internationally recognized borders."

While Benedict's support for a Palestinian homeland alongside Israel is widely shared by the international community, including the United States, it was noteworthy that he made the call in his first public appearance.

[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the hard-line Likud Party, has pointedly refused to endorse the two-state solution since his election. But he is expected to come under pressure to do so when he travels to Washington next week.]

The pope has tried to improve interfaith relations throughout his four-year papacy. But Benedict has had to tread carefully on his Middle East visit after coming under sharp criticism from both Muslims and Jews for past statements. He is hoping his weeklong trip to the Holy Land, which began with three days in neighboring Jordan, will improve interfaith ties.

The Vatican has called his trip to the Middle East a journey of hope and faith. But what Benedict's encountering in this part of the world, said CBS News correspondent Richard Roth, is more like opportunity and risk. Plenty of both lie ahead.

(Left: Pope Benedict XVI is greeted as he arrives at the International Stadium of Amman to celebrate a Holy Mass, Sunday, May 10, 2009.)

Benedict infuriated many Jews by recently welcoming back to the Church a bishop who denies the Holocaust took place.

The Vatican has come under widespread criticism over the years for not doing enough to stop the genocide - a charge it rejects. And the German-born pope himself has faced questions for his involvement in the Hitler Youth corps during the war. Benedict says he was coerced. The pope also outraged Jews earlier this year when he revoked the excommunication of an ultraconservative bishop who denies the Holocaust.

Later Monday, Benedict is scheduled to lay a wreath at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

"It is right and fitting that, during my stay in Israel, I will have the opportunity to honor the memory of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Shoah," he said, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust. He said he would "pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such magnitude."

To some survivors, it's an important gesture - especially from a pope who is German.

"I'm very glad that he is coming to Israel, to Jerusalem, to Yad Vashem, that he is speaking there and thus is recognizing the fact that the Shoah is a major event in Jewish life," said Holocaust researcher Sergio Minerbi.

Dignitaries and religious leaders greeted the pontiff at a red-carpet ceremony at the Tel Aviv airport. Yellow and white Vatican flags fluttered alongside blue and white Israeli banners as an honor guard played in the background.

The pope smiled as he walked along the carpet, flanked by Israeli President Shimon Peres on one side and Netanyahu on the other. Other political leaders, along with black-robed Christian clergymen and Muslim religious leaders, stood in line to shake his hand.

"Your visit here brings a blessed understanding between religions and spreads peace near and far. Historic Israel and the renewed Israel together welcome your arrival as paving the great road to peace," Peres said.

The pope plans to visit holy sites in both Israel and the Palestinian territories. He also will try to draw attention to the shrinking Christian community in the Holy Land.

In Jordan, he said he had a "deep respect" for Islam and toured the country's largest mosque, where he did not pray but had a moment of reflection.

(Left: Pope Benedict XVI listens to Jordan's Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed at the Bethany beyond the Jordan river, the site of Christ's baptism, west of Amman, Jordan on Sunday. King Abdullah II, left, and Queen Rania, right, look on.)

His host thanked Benedict for expressing regret over remarks he made in 2006 that angered many in the Muslim world, when he quoted a Medieval text that characterized some of Islam's Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith. He later expressed regret that his comments offended Muslims.

Here the pope stressed he has "deep respect" for Islam. At the same time he denounced what he called the "manipulation of religion" for political purposes, that's led to violence.

Celebrating mass at a soccer stadium in Amman Sunday, Pope Benedict acknowledged the hardship faced by his followers here. He urged them to hold on to their faith.

"The Catholic community here is deeply touched by the difficulties and uncertainties which affect the people of the Middle East," he said.

Before heading to Israel, Benedict urged Christians and Muslims at a farewell ceremony in Jordan to work for religious tolerance. He said his visit to a Jordan's largest mosque was one of the highlights so far of his first Middle East pilgrimage.

"I would like to encourage all Jordanians, whether Christian or Muslim to build on the firm foundations of religious tolerance that enable the members of different communities to live together in peace and mutual respect," Benedict said.

During his three days in Jordan, the pope said he hoped the Catholic Church could be a force for peace in the region.

[U-R-So-Wrong]

Well, that's just tragic weirdness.

[mrjustice1]

INFLUENCE OF MURDEROUS, THIEVING, FRAUDULENT CATHOLIC CHURCH MUST BE DENIED, AND WE MUST ELIMINATE ALL TRACES OF THAT CHURCH'S INFLUENCE

Neither the pope nor the Catholic Church deserves recognition nor credibility.

Other than its long, historical record of MASS-murder, torture, terror, thievery;
its global plundering of resources to further enrich and empower itself;
and the misery, pain and suffering it caused to innocent, indigenous world peoples - which includes countless MASS-murder, torture, and all of the aforementioned regarding;
natives of South America
natives of Central America
natives of Africa
Jewish and Moslem people
natives of Asia
European peoples
... CRIMES WHICH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH CONTINUES TO COVER UP...

Is this what we need, or is this what we want to tell us what's good for us ? ! ? !

How many of us would democratically elect a mass-murderer to office or as head of state (not to unnecessarily shock us), and literally worship such symbols of well-known murder, torture, thievery, etc ?

We should all hope that other movements - religious or otherwise - deviate from the ways, from the methods, from the doctrines, and from the dogmas, and from the mindset of the Catholic Church, and refine their treatment and consideration for natural human evolution and progress.

It is worthy of mention that there are too many within the Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Islam, and Judaism - who actually are ACTIVELY working toward precipitating mankind's final, APOCALYPTIC doomsday event of destruction, based on distorted and delusional religious teachings!

Religion: "...hardens hearts and enslaves minds."
Religion: " ...a tremendous and horrible, historic mistake."
Religion: " ...a grand waste of time, mind, energy and resources, which must be supplanted by logic, by reasoning, and by science."

[U-R-So-Wrong]

The conservatives say alot of things, but their policies are NEVER in accordance.
Posted by texasbeta


I suspect that many believe what they say. Doesn't keep them from being wrong, or their politicians from lying to them.

[texasbeta]

For the most part, religious zealots in the USA have gotten very little for all of their PACs and all of their candidates. They don't have faith-based textbooks in the public schools, they don't have a nationwide ban on gay marriage, they don't have a nationwide ban on abortion. If they are economic conservatives, they didn't have that with GWB either (huge government deficits aren't exactly what conservatives endorse.)

Compare that with one-party theocracies around the world. A lunatic really gets more for their money in Iran.
Posted by U-R-So-Wrong

i would agree to an extent, however....some of your points are incorrect. As far as their influence on politicians...the Christian Right and Focus on the Family have been HUGE with the Republican idealogues since the 80s. As for textbooks...you are wrong. Alabama and a few other states, already have intelligence design in them...and Texas is trying as well. This is absolute insanity. Nationwide bans on abortion...well, 40 years ago there was. We have a huge element of the right who disagree with global warming because they believe that God wouldn't allow it. As for the huge government deficits...sure, the talking point is that conservatives don't like it...but think back....Reagan is the father of their party, and he racked up more of a deficit than anyone before him. They don't like taxe increases? Reagan enacted the largest tax increase in a non-wartime era than anyone before or after him. Bush racked up a deficit larger than all combined before him. The conservatives say alot of things, but their policies are NEVER in accordance.

[mrjustice1]

CATHOLIC CHURCH, OTHER 'RELIGIONS' OWE WOMEN MORE THAN A MAJOR APOLOGY

The pope is another 'cover-up agent' of the misconceived catholic church and of the catholic religion.

To be fair, ALL religion is warped, based on myths, falsehoods, delusions and fabrications of able politician/salesMEN who duped the ancient people. It is more troubling that similar duping of the people continues today when we do know better.

The CATHOLIC CHURCH is guilty of wrongfully demonizing women, thereby ruining our (the world's) evolution, and in no small ways, perverting mankind's entire history!

APOLOGIES ON BEHALF OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TO ALL WOMEN THROUGHOUT HISTORY IS HEREBY ANNUNCIATED ! that church owes women big time!

Mega litigation on behalf of women, and by all Church's victims should follow.

[U-R-So-Wrong]

For the most part, religious zealots in the USA have gotten very little for all of their PACs and all of their candidates. They don't have faith-based textbooks in the public schools, they don't have a nationwide ban on gay marriage, they don't have a nationwide ban on abortion. If they are economic conservatives, they didn't have that with GWB either (huge government deficits aren't exactly what conservatives endorse.)

Compare that with one-party theocracies around the world. A lunatic really gets more for their money in Iran.

[texasbeta]

How can we reason and make peace with such a primitive civilization??????
where hatred and killing their own much more the rest is everyday living without any conscience or recourse????
How can the rest of the world work together to make these large groups of haters: talibans, hamas, hezbollah, al-qaida and most of the population that has been brainwashed...,to re-educate them and teach them the real history...
integrate them in our society as citizens of good and not evil!
It will take a real nation with real leadership!
Posted by factsearcher

I get what you are saying, but consider that there are a great number of people in the world, that consider evanglical Christians in America as the same...basing their viewpoints off of myth and conjecture, epousing hatred and intolerance with the veracity of a Islamic cleric. There are a great number of people who consider the same problems when thinking of how to deal with right wingers who think the earth is 6000 years old, that Adam rode a T-Rex, that America is a Christian nation, that they don't have to pay taxes, that Obama is a manchurian candidate that was indoctrinated at the age of 5....secretly programmed. Seriously...we have just as many here in this country.

[factsearcher]

the opinions of nonloyalist are scary real thoughts and opinions of most brainwashed people in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the palestinians.
They read books that are not real history but plain propaganda and just like this moron enunciate what he believes is the whole truth...that is how the view what has happened throuhout history.
How can we reason and make peace with such a primitive civilization??????
where hatred and killing their own much more the rest is everyday living without any conscience or recourse????
How can the rest of the world work together to make these large groups of haters: talibans, hamas, hezbollah, al-qaida and most of the population that has been brainwashed...,to re-educate them and teach them the real history...
integrate them in our society as citizens of good and not evil!
It will take a real nation with real leadership!

[U-R-So-Wrong]

There is clearly a disconnect between the basic documents of the American republic and the other-worldly German Idealists, who have given us generations of political mystics waiting for "intersubjective reality", "history realizing itself", "the moral equivalence of all peoples" and the fellow-travelers of "property is theft" and "re-education through labor" to usher-in the kind of harmony that can only be found at Jonestown when the music's over.

If such angry young men can't find what they're looking-for in the Palestinian cause, perhaps they'll find it in Abu Sayyaf. Difficult to locate a Zionist conspiracy in the Philippines, but with enough focus, any mad image may yet come into view.

[U-R-So-Wrong]

Americans who justify genocide and apartheid should leave America. Us real patriots demand truth and justice and want to stop special interest big corporate interest groups like AIPAC who profit from death. Posted by noloyalisti

Real Patriots ... Truth ... Justice ... Special Interests ...
Please look up the name Vidkun Quisling and report back to us.