The Catholic Church has made a point of emphasizing that the upcoming visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the Holy Land is first and foremost a religious pilgrimage and non-political. 'The Holy Father comes as the head of the Catholic Church and not as the head of the Vatican State,' stressed the Pope's diplomatic representative in Jerusalem, Archbishop Antonio Franco. 'Don't expect a political side,' he added, 'Read with religious glasses.'
The visit will nevertheless be a balancing act, with both Israelis and Palestinians likely to try to make political capital.
Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh insisted that although his visit was primarily religious, the Pope's scheduled tour of a Palestinian refugee camp was a 'political statement.'
'It has a political message to Israelis, Palestinians and the whole world that his Holiness the Pope stands with the oppressed and really believes that there should be a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,' Batarseh, 74 and a Christian Palestinian, told the German Press Agency dpa.
Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal conceded that in a region which 'breathes politics,' it was 'unthinkable that there not be a political dimension.'
'The nuncio is right in insisting that this is first and foremost a pilgrimage. But we mustn't fool ourselves,' he told CTS (Custodia Terrae Sanctae) News, of the Franciscan body which traditionally has custody of holy sites in the area and coordinates the Papal visit jointly with the Latin Patriarchate.
'Every day, every gesture, every meeting and every visit, everything will have a political connotation.'
As such, the Church has tried to create an itinerary that fairly divides his time between Jordan, the Palestinian areas and Israel, said the Jordanian-born Twal.
In addition to visiting Christian holy sites, Pope Benedict XVI will talk to a host of political and religious leaders, meetings which Nuncio Franco made clear were 'courtesy' ones.
The state aspect of the visit will be taken care of by meetings with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Amman, Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, and finally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Pope's tour of Nazareth, northern Israel.
One of the more politically sensitive points on the itinerary is Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust remembrance institute.
Papal Nuncio Franco said the Pope would visit the Holocaust memorial, but not the museum at Yad Vashem, where a controversial caption charges that Pope Pius XII, who reigned during World War II, failed to condemn or intervene in the Holocaust.
'He goes to pay respect and to pray for the victims of the Shoah, full stop,' said the Pope's envoy.
As for inter-faith talks, Benedict XVI is slated to hold separate ones with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Israel's two chief rabbis.
He is also due to visit what has often been described as perhaps the most disputed piece of real estate in the world: The Temple Mount/Holy Sanctuary compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. The third holiest site in Islam and the holiest in Judaism, it houses both the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine, but also the ruins of the Jewish Biblical Temple.
Benedict XVI is to tour - but not pray at - the Dome of the Rock, which contains the Holy Rock from where Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven, and the Western Wall, a retaining wall of the platform on which the Jewish Temple once stood and as such its only standing remnant.
But the visit is also a moral-boosting one to a local Arab Christian community, whose numbers have been shrinking. Their national identity firmly on the side of their fellow Arabs, local Christians are at the same time keenly aware of their status as a tiny minority between quarreling Jews and Muslims.
The exceptionally rare pilgrimage, the third by a reigning Pope since the days of Saint Peter, is also expected to arouse massive interest among many of the world's 1.15 billion Roman Catholics, who make up almost one-sixth of its total population.
Twal said he hoped it would boost the pilgrimage industry, which he called of 'vital and of major importance.'
Warding off criticism that the visit is ill-timed because it comes after Israel's deadly December-January Gaza offensive and the swearing in of a new government which has refused to openly support Palestinian statehood, the archbishop said:
'Preparations for the trip have been going on for months now. In between came the war of Gaza and the conflict thermometer rose. So what should be done? Wait for better times? But this region is never at peace! Wait until the Palestinian question is resolved?
'I'm afraid that two or three sovereign pontiffs will pass before it is definitely settled.'+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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