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Israel and the Vatican are “very close” to concluding a bilateral accord on the legal and financial status of the Roman Catholic Church in the State of Israel, according to the country’s ambassador to the Holy See.The ambassador, Oden Ben Hur, was speaking at a conference organised by the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.
The text under negotiation is the economic section of the Fundamental Agreement on relations, which the Vatican and Israel signed in December 1993.
However, nothing happened for a decade until negotiations resumed in 2004.
“About 85 per cent of the text has been examined and approved by the representatives of Israel and the Vatican,” the ambassador stated.
A few weeks ago, Archbishop Pietro Sambi denounced the failure of Israel to keep “the promises” it made to the Holy See in 1993 when the two sides signed a Fundamental Agreement and established diplomatic relations.
He said the Vatican had trusted Israel to make good on its promises but it had not done so.
It is understood the Israeli government would have seen Arch-bishop Sambi’s comments as representative of the Vatican’s disillusionment with the situation.
The two sides are seeking to hammer out an agreement concerning the legal and tax status of Church property in Israel, the commercial activities of Christian communities there and the question of access of Arab Christian clergy to their flock.
The next round of talks is scheduled to take place in Israel on December 13 but sources in Rome have suggested that failure to reach an accord soon would rule out a papal visit to Israel in 2008.
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