Pope Francis’ recent visit to the Holy Land made the international headlines. Its real core was about visiting Christians and promoting Christian unity.

During his visit, Pope Francis visited the forgotten Church collaborators in Jerusalem such as the nuns who live on the Via Dolorosa and my fellow Franciscan brothers who care for the spiritual and material needs of the pilgrims that visit the holy sites of salvation. Finally, and most notably, the Holy Father met with the shrinking number of Arab Christians who are living either in Israel or the Palestinian Territories, or else in neighbouring countries.

The official Vatican website dedicated to Pope Francis’ apostolic trip to the Holy Land portrayed several sections about the persecution of Palestinian Christians. It rightly highlighted that these Christian brethren are continually “faced by an exclusivist Islamic movement that often refuses to recognise Christians as co-citizens with equal rights, equal obligations, and equal opportunities”.

When meeting the members of the Muslim community, among others Muhammed Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Pope Francis indirectly voiced this troubling issue. He highlighted the singular role of Abraham in Christianity and Islam as well as the “fraternal dialogue” between the two faiths. However, he ended his address with a moving appeal and a gentle reproach. “May we respect and love one another as brothers and sisters! May we learn to understand the sufferings of others! May no one abuse the name of God through violence!”

The comments are predominantly remarkable when compared with remarks he made in the audience he held with the two chief rabbis of Israel, namely David Lau and Shlomo Amar. Here, Pope Francis also pursued the theme of dialogue and kinship but he accentuated the shared theological heritage which Jews and Christians share. He said: “On the part of Catholics, there is a clear intention to reflect deeply on the significance of the Jewish roots of our own faith. I trust that, with your help, on the part of Jews too, there will be a continued and even growing interest in knowledge of Christianity, also in this holy land to which Christians trace their origins. This is especially to be hoped for among young people.”

Francis’ language was a clear reference to Nostra Aetate, the first Church document which directly deals with people of other faiths. This declaration, composed in the mid-1960s, adopts a particularly conciliatory approach towards the Jewish people. Pope Francis accentuated the “bond” between Jews and Christians and the relevance of working together to create peace and “oppose every form of anti-Semitism and all other forms of discrimination”. He openly condemned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict describing it as “unacceptable”.

The Vatican wisely accentuated the fact that the apostolic visit’s aim was the meeting between the Patriarch of Rome and that of Constantinople, Francis and Bartholomew. The first encounter between the two primates dates back half a century ago when Pope Paul VI met Patriarch Athenagoras.

The language of their joint declaration, signed by Francis and Bartholomew, focuses on unity and reconciliation. “Our fraternal encounter today is a new and necessary step on the journey towards the unity to which only the Holy Spirit can lead us, that of communion in legitimate diversity” (§ 2). Moreover they declared that “theological dialogue does not seek a theological lowest common denominator on which to reach a compromise, but is rather about deepening one’s grasp of the whole truth that Christ has given to his Church, a truth that we never cease to understand better as we follow the Holy Spirit’s promptings” (§ 4).

The declaration justifiably pushed forward the indispensable need of preventing Christians from being persecuted. “We express our shared profound concern for the situation of Christians in the Middle East and for their right to remain full citizens of their homelands… We especially pray for the Churches in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, which have suffered most grievously due to recent events” (§ 8).

Let us pray for Pope Francis to keep being the pilgrim he is, namely “a person who makes himself poor and sets forth on a journey.” What can be done so that Christians and other faith believers cease being unjustly persecuted?

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap

San Gwann