World

Mixed Feelings Greet Pope

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 20, 2000 / 8:55 AM EST / CBS

It's called the Holy Land, but it's really a land of unhealed wounds.

And the Pope's visit there, which began Monday morning when his plane touched down in Amman, Jordan, has evoked mixed feelings in just about everyone, reports CBS News Correspondent Jesse Schulman.

Israel's list of qualms begin with security, and thousands of security officers will keep the Pope's route tightly sealed off. Israel is planning its biggest security operation ever in preparation for the Pope's arrival Tuesday evening.

Opinion polls show a high-level of public support for the pope's visit. But some extremist groups are planning demonstrations.

Most Israelis say he's welcome there. For many, though, the Pope is a reminder of 2,000 years of persecution, and what they want to hear most is the word "Sorry."

Asked whether the Pope will apologize to the Jews, Arcchbishop John Patrick Foley, a Vatican spokesman, told the CBS Early Show: "Well, of course, the Holy Father has already said in that day of pardon, which was just a week ago here at the Vatican, that he was sorry on behalf of those in the Church who had been unjust to Jews over the centuries. So there has been an expression of sorrow."

Many Jews have said last week's apology didn't go far enough and they mentioned the silence of current Pope about the failure of Pope Pius XII to speak out against Hitler and the Holocaust.

Archbishop Foley said he expected the Pope to be praying during his trip "for those who died in that terrible Holocaust."

The Pope's trip comes three days after a flap over the recent remarks of papal adviser, the Rev. Peter Gumpel, who said it was a fact that the Jews killed Christ.

Archbishop Foley said Father Gumpel's remarks were taken out of context and said the Vatican view is that "we're all responsible for the death of Christ. Christ died for all of us, for all our sins, and it was the Romans at the time - and the Jewish leaders - who had called for the crucifixion of Christ. The Romans carried it out."

For the Israelis, sprucing up Jerusalem and laying on a security operation that overall will cost them more than $10 million, every move the Pope makes in Jerusalem reinforces their claim that the city is the "eternal and indivisible capital" of Israel.

A few Israelis don't want the Pope in Israel at all. His helicopter pad was defaced.

In Jerusalem, police said suspected right-wing Jewish extremists vandalized the helipad where the papal helicopter is to land, spay-painting swastikas and slogans such as "Pope Out" and "Where were you during the Holocaust?"

For Palestinians, the pope's religious purposes are beside the point. When he visits the town of Bethlehem, where Christ is believed to have been born, the Pope will be a guest in their land.

In Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem John Paul II's impending arrival and Mass in Manger Square are viewed as a vivid stamp of approval on the still undeclared state of Palestine.

But plans to hold a public interfaith dialogue with Jewish and Moslem leaders have been set back by an announcement that the highest ranking Moslem cleric will not take part, and will not meet in public with Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi.

Officials at Orient House, the PLO headquarters in Arab East Jerusalem, flew a large balloon with Palestinian and Vatican flags over the building to test Israel's reaction to a show of Palestinian nationalism.

Israeli police responded by closing off access to Orient House but took no immediate action to pull the balloon down.

Israel regards all of Jerusalem, including the eastern sector it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as its ``eternal and indivisible'' capital. The PLO wants East Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian state.

The Vatican has stressed that this is a personal and a spiritual pilgrimage and if there is a political vision, it would be to be a peacemaker in a land that has been plagued by division.

The Vatican hopes that the people of this volatile region will accept the Holy Father in the spirit in which he comes.

Archbishop Foley said…that the Pope goes to Israel "as a man of peace and as a man of prayer going to the land made sacred by Jesus Christ, whom we believe to be the savior of the world.

"And the Pope is making a long-dreamed-of visit to this land, and what a wonderful time to do it, the year 2000, the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Christ.

The date was chosen specifically, he said, because of March 25 is believed to be the anniversary of the incarnation, the time when Jesus became a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

"I think the fact that the pope is going means it already is a success,"Archbishop Foley said. The fact that the Pope is able to return there in the steps of Jesus is already a marvelous success. And we're grateful he's able to go, and grateful that all of the authorities there are receiving him in a friendly manner. And we're sure that he will be an instrument of peace."