Ecumenism, peace, interfaith dialogue and support for Christians in the region are the goals of the papal pilgrimage, which starts tomorrow. During his visit, the Holy Father will hold four meetings with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. For this trip, he asked a rabbi and a Muslim scholar to accompany. The three countries he will visit are home to half a million Christians, a community in decline.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - For Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, the pilgrimage Pope Francis begins tomorrow in the Holy Land is a journey of "encounter". It will also be ecumenical since it comes 50 years after the historic embrace in Jerusalem between Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, a gesture that will be repeated in the four meetings scheduled with the current Patriarch Bartholomew.

A joint declaration and an ecumenical prayer in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday will be among the great moments of this event. What is more, as the fourth pope to travel to the region where Jesus lived, Francis, like his predecessors, will try, to quote Card Parolin, "to help all leaders and all people of good will to take bold decisions in the way of peace."

However, this will be particularly difficult after the US failed to jumpstart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. Nevertheless, the pope will certainly push this agenda in his meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Sunday), as well as Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Monday).

On Monday before his flight back to Rome, the pontiff will also meet with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the two Chief Rabbis of Israel, as well as visit the Western Wall, Yad Vashem and Mount Herzl, where the founder of Zionism is buried. These meetings must be seen in the same light, especially with regards to interfaith dialogue.

It is important to note from the perspective of interfaith, that Pope Francis asked Rabbi Abraham Skorka, rector of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary in Buenos Aires, and Omar Abboud of the Argentine Islamic Centre, to join him on this trip.

Last but certainly not least, the papal visit is meant to confirm in their faith Catholics and more generally Christians who live in the region.

Excluding Lebanon, there are about half a million Christians in the three countries the pope will visit.

Jordan, the first stage of the papal visit, is home to about 200,000 Christians, equally divided between Catholics and Orthodox, plus thousands of Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

In the Palestinian territories, about 50,000 Christians live in West Bank, half of them Catholic, mainly in Bethlehem and Ramallah. In the Gaza Strip, since Hamas seized power in 2007, Christians have seen their numbers drop and only 1,550 are now left, 130 Catholics.

In Israel, Christians number about 160,000, half of them Catholics, plus some 60,000 migrant workers, mostly Catholics, who do not have Israeli nationality.

Throughout the region, Christians are a declining minority, living on the margins of Israeli society and victims in recent years of organised violence carried out by extremist Islamic groups in Iraq and Syria and, to some extent, the Gaza Strip.

Although they have lived in the region for 2,000 years and view themselves mostly as Arabs, for many Muslims, Christians are seen as "outsiders," an opinion reinforced by a wrong Islamic interpretation of the "Arab Spring".

Israel has contributed to this ghettoisation with its recent decision to give Israeli Christians citizens an opportunity to join the army.

Indeed in Israel itself, where graffiti by Jewish extremists on churches and Christian sites may be a marginal problem, the Christian population has always lived on the margins of society. (FP)

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