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Pope Francis is scheduled to host a peace prayer with the Israeli and Palestinian presidents in a move aimed at bringing the two peoples together.
Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, led prayers yesterday at the Vatican with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres in a gesture aimed at fostering dialogue.
“This prayer meeting will not be for mediation or to find solutions. We are just meeting up to pray. Then everyone goes home,” Francis said after issuing the invitations during a pilgrimage to the Middle East last month.
Francis has been realistic about the prospects of his initiative, saying it would be “crazy” to expect any Vatican mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Despite insisting that he had no wish to meddle in politics, Francis, on his second day of a visit to the Holy Land, called for Palestinians and Israelis to work together, saying the breakdown in talks between the two sides earlier this year was “unacceptable”.
The prayers from the world’s three main monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, will focus on three themes: “creation”, “invocation for forgiveness” and “invocation for peace”.
Following the prayers, Francis, Abbas and Peres will make their invocation for peace and the three will then plant an olive tree in a symbolic call for peace.
The meeting is taking place more than a month after US-led peace talks collapsed and Israel announed plans to build 3,200 new illegal settler homes on occupied Palestinian land.
Following the formation of a new Palestinian unity government backed by Hamas, tensions have flared between the two sides. — AP
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