ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis is journeying to Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, without the bullet-proof popemobile used by previous popes on overseas travel. His faith will be his shield.
Pope Francis is heading this weekend to Jordan, Israel and the West Bank — a tense region where violence can break out any moment — and he’s not bringing the bullet-proof popemobile his predecessors used on overseas trips.
Instead, Francis will be traveling in an open-topped car to make it easier to meet and greet well-wishers.
“It’s not like we’re going to a country where Catholics are a majority and great crowds are expected,” said Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman.
Francis is also breaking with tradition and bringing a Jew and a Muslim along — Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Imam Omar Abboud, the pope’s longtime friends from Argentina.
Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images An ultra-Orthodox Jew walks past a banner for the upcoming visit of Pope Francis outside a Christian Information Center near the Jaffa Gate on May 23. Pope Francis is due to make his first visit to the Holy Land as pontiff Sunday. The Israeli National Police, worried about Jewish extremists who have reportedly threatened to disrupt the papal visit, are not taking any chances and have assigned 8,000 officers to provide security.
They have already issued restraining orders against the groups, which have been blamed for vandalizing Christian holy sites with anti-Arab and anti-Christian graffiti.
Only about 2% of Israel’s population is Christian, most of them indigenous Arabs.
Francis’ first stop Saturday is Amman, Jordan, where he will meet King Abdullah, celebrate mass at the International Stadium, and meet with Syrian refugees.
VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images Banners with the image of Pope Francis (L) and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, hang from a lamp post on May 23, 2014, close to an Israeli army watch tower which makes up a section of the controversial Israeli constructed separation barrier, prior to the visit of the Pope to the West Bank Biblical town of Bethlehem. On Sunday, Francis will take a chopper to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, where he will say mass and meet with Palestinian leaders and refugees.
That evening, Francis will head to Jerusalem for what’s supposed to be the highlight of his trip — a historic prayer service at Church of the Holy Sepulcher to mark the 50th anniversary of a turning point in Catholic-Orthodox Christian relations.
In 1964, Pope Paul VI and the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Athenagoras, ended centuries of enmity with a meeting that ended in an iconic embrace.
Then, on Monday, Francis will visit with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem before praying at the Western Wall and paying his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
JIM HOLLANDER/EPA Pope Francis is to meet Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Israel, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the meeting of Pope John Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I. The meeting with Bartholomew is being called an ‘Apostolic Pilgrimage to Jerusalem’. Francis will meet with Israel’s two Chief Rabbis, the country’s president, Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Before departing for Rome, Francis will preside over a private mass at the church of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives, where Christians believe Jesus and his disciples pray before he was crucified.
— With News Wire Services
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