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Tuesday, May 8, 2001
Pope visits a 'museum' of brutality
John Paul II prays for peace and pours water on an olive plant in Syria
By Alessandra Stanley
New York Times News Service
QUNEITRA, Syria - Pouring water on a potted olive tree, Pope John Paul II prayed Monday for peace and forgiveness in the Middle East as he visited a shattered city on the Golan Heights that is mainly a symbol of irreconcilable conflict.
The pocked streets surrounding the church where he prayed were crowded with thousands of Syrians brought by bus to greet the pope. Many of them were former residents who stood silently in front of their flattened houses.
The Golan Heights were captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Quneitra is in the portion that was returned in a 1974 agreement brokered by the United States. Syria has kept the city uninhabited and in ruins as what it depicts as a museum of Israeli brutality.
The pope prayed that believers would "find the courage to forgive one another so that the wounds of the past may be healed, and not be a pretext for further suffering in the present."
Weak and visibly tired, the 80-year-old pope prayed on his knees inside the battered shell of an Orthodox church, one of the few buildings still standing, and addressed the news that a baby was killed Monday morning by Israeli tanks firing at a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
"Mindful of the sad news of conflict and death that even today arrives from Gaza," the pope said in remarks added to his prepared text, "our prayers become even more intense."
'Happy for your visit'
The pope was greeted by children holding banners that signaled the political importance of his presence. "We are so happy for your visit," one sign said. Another said, "Right is on our side."
In his travels the pope has always had to weave his message through the political agendas of his hosts, whether it was Gen. Augusto Pinochet who in 1987 rearranged the schedule in Chile so he could pose on a balcony alongside the pope, or Fidel Castro, who in 1998 placed a portrait of Che Guevara above the altar where the pope offered a Mass in Cuba.
The last time the pope was in the Middle East - on another biblical pilgrimage, which took him last year to Israel and the Palestinian territories - each side tried to use his presence as an implicit seal of approval for its claim to Jerusalem as a capital. The Vatican favors an international solution to protect the city's holy sites.
The pope, who feels he has the moral authority to transcend local political agendas, stuck to his message, unfazed by manipulative moments and ungracious statements on both sides.
'Noble land'
The Vatican took no public note in Syria of President Bashar Assad's harsh statements seeking to portray Israel as the natural enemy of Christianity. At a Mass in a Damascus sports arena on Saturday, the pope instead urged Christians, Muslims and Jews to work together to combat intolerance.
The pope's message Monday in the Golan Heights called for respect, justice and peace - and also for enlightened leadership. "In a special way we pray for the leaders of this noble land of Syria," the papal prayer stated.
The pope is on a six-day pilgrimage retracing the apostle Paul's steps in Greece, Syria and Malta. Believers say Paul passed through Quneitra on his way to Damascus.
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© 2001,
a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.
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