CNN Insight

The Pope In The Holy Land

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

RALPH WENGE, INSIGHT (voice-over): A journey to the heartland of his Catholic faith, Pope John Paul II visits the site revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus and makes an emotional appeal for the Palestinian homeland. Yet again, religion and politics intertwine in a mix that is so typical of the Middle East.

(on camera): Hello, and welcome to INSIGHT. I'm Ralph Wenge. Jonathan Mann is on assignment.

John Paul has said he will focus on religious issues in his week- long pilgrimage in the Holy Land, but he's been unable to ignore the political, as was clear on Wednesday during his stops in Palestinian- controlled areas.

For decades, the Pope has longed to journey to the cradle of Christianity, and his visit has been greeted by large crowds. We begin our program with a report by CNN's Jerusalem bureau chief Walter Rogers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ever strengthened by prayer, Pope John Paul II kneels in the grotto, traditional site of the manger where Jesus was born. It was a day for spiritual sustenance because Middle East politics stalk the pontiff's visit to Palestinian Bethlehem.

When the Pope left this bowl of soil from the land of Jesus' birth, Palestinians seized on it as papal recognition of their aspirations for a homeland. Later, the pontiff gave a powerful lift to those hopes.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: No one can ignore how much the Palestinian people have had to suffer in the recent decades. Your torment is before the eyes of the world.

RODGERS: Palestinian president Yasser Arafat was elated.

YASSER ARAFAT, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY PRESIDENT (through translator): This long-suffering Holy Land is in need of your prayers and efforts.

RODGERS: Politics took only a brief respite when pilgrims gathered in Bethlehem's Manger Square for a papal Mass.

To the strains of an ancient crusader hymn, the princes of the church led the pontiff into the square.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: That peace I wish all the Palestinian people.

RODGERS: Even during the Mass, the pontiff was reminded of the religious tensions which grip the Holy Land. No sooner had the Pope finished his homily, then the Muslim call to prayer interrupted the papal Mass - Christians having to pause for Muslims.

The crowds in this largely Muslim city were enthusiastic but not overwhelming, even when the pontiff visited a Palestinian refugee camp.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: Dear brothers and sisters, refugees, do not think that your present condition makes you any less important in God's eyes.

RODGERS: No sooner had the Pope left the refugee camp, however, then disturbances arose. Angry Palestinian refugees throwing stones at Palestinian police, protesting the extra tight security precautions in the camp.

(on camera): If the Pope seemed to tilt toward Palestinians, on the next leg of this pilgrimage, he meets Israel's president and Israel's chief rabbis. Then perhaps the most solemn, if not the most mournful moment of the visit, the Pope will pay homage to Jews killed during the Holocaust. The pontiff going to Yad Vashem, Israel's holocaust memorial.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Bethlehem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WENGE: A short time ago, we got in touch with Walter Rodgers, and we asked him about the importance of the visit for the pontiff.

RODGERS: It was clearly an important day for the Pope. This pilgrimage, which he wanted to make in the twilight of his 22-year papacy, is something that he said he dreamed about during all those years. It is clearly the culmination of his career. He's made 92 trips around the world in previous papal visits, but none I think is more important to him than this one. Ralph.

WENGE: The visit to the refugee camp earlier - was that seen as a visit of compassion, or was it billed (ph) as a political visit?

RODGERS: Clearly for the Pope, it was a visit of compassion. He extended his heartfelt sympathy to generations of Palestinians which have lived in refugee camps. This was, of course, a symbolic visit to just one refugee camp. There are many others far more squalid than this one.

And the Pope was extending a Christian hand to the Palestinians, as I say, some of whom have had families in those refugee camps since 1947 and many came to the camps again in 1967. These are people who are displaced because of numerous wars between the Israelis and the Palestinians and other Arabs. Ralph.

WENGE: The refugees, at least some of them or perhaps many of them, were hoping that the Pope's visit would lead to international recognition of their plight. Any indication that's going to happen?

RODGERS: No, but you can't minimize the import of the Pope's moral force when he goes to one of these refugee camps and champions a particular cause, as earlier in the day, by the way, he championed the cause of a Palestinian homeland.

Now, all of this is terribly important because it throws the full weight, the moral force of the papacy behind a major human rights issue. And while other world leaders can speak out on human rights issues, none carries the moral force of that of Pope John Paul II. Ralph.

WENGE: What could we see coming up in the next couple of days, Walter?

RODGERS: Well, perhaps the most solemn, if not mournful, moment of the Pope's visit to the Holy Land comes tomorrow. This when the Pope visits Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial. Every visitor to the Holy Land goes to Yad Vashem, or every visitor to Israel goes to Yad Vashem, but I think no world leader will go with the symbolism that the Pope goes.

Remember, he is a Pole - many of the Nazi death camps were in Poland. He was a young seminarian in Krakow, just outside Auschwitz, when those horrible crimes against humanity were committed. Here is a Pope who knew Polish Jews who perished in those camps. I don't think any other non-Jew can feel the full weight of the Holocaust like Pope John Paul II will when he visits Yad Vashem. Ralph.

WENGE: CNN's Walter Rodgers, thank you.

In a moment, the political pulse - what the Israeli people think of John Paul's visit. INSIGHT will be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pope John Paul II's current journey to the Holy Land is his 91stt trip outside Italy. He has kissed the tarmac in 119 countries, with Poland and the United States holding the record for the most visits - seven times each. It's estimated the Pope has racked up almost 700,000 travel miles, making John Paul II the most widely traveled Pope in history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WENGE (voice-over): Voices of protest against the visit of the Pope, a fringe group of ultra-Orthodox Jews staged demonstrations outside Bethlehem, calling the Pope immoral and unacceptable. One person was arrested for placing a curse on the Pope.

(on camera): Welcome back. While the papal visit has seen stepped-up security in Israel and the Palestinian territories, many Jewish and Muslim groups have welcomed the emissary of the Catholic Church, calling him a man of peace.

Coinciding with the visit, Gallup Israel has just conducting a survey of 500 Jewish adults. We spoke with Ron Kronish of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, which commissioned the survey.

RON KRONISH, INTERRELIGIOUS COORDINATING COUNCIL IN ISRAEL: We found that 60 percent of the people in the poll were positively favorable to the visit of the Pope. I think if you took the poll today, it would be closer to 80 percent.

There's a lot of excitement, there's tremendous interest here in the media. I think the reception at the airport yesterday and all the things that were said when he came here, the greeting by the president, the prime minister, there's a sense of great excitement here.

WENGE: Does that excitement hold true with the Palestinians as well?

KRONISH: Oh, yes. I think the Palestinians are very excited. They're having - their day, as it were, today. The Pope is in Bethlehem. He his dividing his time and giving support to the peace process, both on the Palestinian side and on the Jewish Israeli side. So the Palestinians are clearly very excited about this visit as well.

WENGE: Dr. Kronish, the Pope has insisted that his trip is not political, and yet everything about this trip has been political or so much of it has been. The issue of the Palestinian homeland and of the Palestinian refugees he's made a major part of his speeches.

KRONISH: I read all the speeches about an hour ago, the ones that were given the last two days. In his speeches he has tried to avoid any direct political references. His language is very general. It's promoting peace and reconciliation, trying to support both sides in the conflict, moving for a just peace for all sides.

The people who are making it political are the politicians on both sides. So each side - and by the way, the media. So each side is trying to help shape the agenda, but if you look at the Pope's approach, I think it's consistent with their ideology, which is basically it's a religious pilgrimage, but part of the pilgrimage is a message of peace. His message of peace is more general than directly political, I think, but people use it any way they want.

WENGE: But did he not publicly advocate a homeland for the Palestinians?

KRONISH: I think he's advocating the rights of the Palestinians, and he's advocating, when he's on Jewish Israeli soil, the rights of the Jews to a state. He's kind of pursuing as much as he can, I think, a balanced position. And any attempts to try to say that he's on one side or the other side, I think, are not really correct. I don't think he's any more political than those who are trying to promote the peace process in Israel, which recognizes the rights and needs on both sides of the equation.

WENGE: Do you think, then, that perhaps - and you talked about the politicians a moment ago - that they are trying to use the Pope, to use this trip for their own ends?

KRONISH: To some extent. I think yesterday, when Mayor Ehud Olmert greeted the Pope on Mount Scopus and when the president received him at the airport, there were clear references to Jerusalem remaining united forever. When the Palestinians greeted him this morning, there were clear references on their side and interpretations that he's in favor of a Palestinian homeland, as you say. Each side is trying to use this towards his own advantage.

I think the Pope is trying to steer a course in between and trying to be as fair as he can. And if you look closely at the speeches as I did earlier today, he refrains from outright political statements. He didn't mention specifically, the right of returning, in his speech today in Bethlehem. He doesn't take a political stance on Jerusalem one way or the other. He's mostly promoting peace and reconciliation and justice. And then one can then interpret what that means depending on one's own point of view.

WENGE: Your group conducted a poll of the people there of this trip, and one of the questions that was asked was, "Does the Vatican recognize the state of Israel?" What kind of response did you get?

KRONISH: The response was very high. Nearly two-thirds of the people here in Israel were aware of the recognition of the Vatican, of the state of Israel, which came at the end of 1993. Less people knew about the Pope's statements against anti-Semitism or about the Pope's declarations about the Holocaust. There's less education about that in Israel.

WENGE: What did the people respond to when asked if the Vatican indicated that it opposes anti-Semitism?

KRONISH: People were not aware of it. And one of the problems here in Israel and around the world is that many of the statements that have been made by the Vatican in the past 35 years denouncing anti-Semitism, denouncing the Holocaust in his document two years ago, are not widely known or appreciated or understood here in Israel and in other places. And there's need for greater education.

One of the positive things that's come out of this visit is that many of these documents have now been published all or in part in much of the Israeli press. We sent a Hebrew version of all the documents of the Catholic Church to every member of the Knesset two weeks ago and received many letters of thanks. Many of the people saw this for the first time.

WENGE: I thought it was very interesting that when people were asked the purpose of the trip before he arrived there, there was an almost equal number of people who said, partly to visit the political sites and partly to influence the peace process in the Middle East.

KRONISH: Yes, it's true. But if you look carefully at the numbers, and I have them in front of me, only 22 percent thought that the purpose of the visit was to influence the peace process in the Middle East. The larger numbers, 46.9 percent, understand the visit as a pilgrimage to the holy sites. And 40 percent understand it as a pilgrimage to promote a message of peace and dialog in the year 2000, which I think from the point of view of the Catholic Church, shows that the Pope is getting his basic message across.

Only a small number saw him, as it were, meddling in the peace process, which I don't think is his intention. I think the intention of the church and the Pope is to let the Israelis and the Palestinians resolve the issues of Jerusalem and the peace process bilateral. Their main concerns are more about the religious sites, the holy sites. And so I think the Vatican is succeeding in getting the message across.

About an hour ago, I heard Minister Haim Ramon give an impromptu briefing to the press where he basically reiterated many of the things that the Pope has been saying. And I think the Israeli government seems to be trying as much as possible to cooperate with the Pope and with the Vatican in seeing this visit as primarily as a religious pilgrimage.

WENGE: Dr. Kronish, thank you very much for speaking with us.

KRONISH: You're welcome.

WENGE: And in just a moment, the Pope and policy - we look at the visit's impact on the region. We'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At a time when anti-Semitism was widespread in Poland, Pope John Paul II grew up among Jews among the town of Wadowice. He played on the Jewish soccer team, enjoyed listening to the cantor sing at the town synagogue and has maintained close friendships with several childhood Jewish friends. Since the time of the Apostle Peter, no pontiff has spent his childhood in such close contact with the Jewish community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WENGE: As a widely traveled religious leader, the Pope is no stranger to controversy. But in the Middle East, the disputes are not just religious.

Lorenzo Cremonesi is with the Italian newspaper, "Il Corriere della Sera." He has been based in Israel for 16 years and is working on a book about the relationship between Israel and the Vatican.

I spoke with him about the political impact of the trip.

LORENZO CREMONESI, JOURNALIST: Well, the most political aspect is that the visit is coming six years after the signing of the agreement between the Vatican and the state of Israel. The church, for the first time, recognizes the state of Israel and the Pope is coming here, talking to both sides on equal parts.

Of course today, with the Palestinians - today was the first actual day of the Pope in the Holy Land. He landed yesterday evening in Tel Aviv, but today is the first full active day. Today was dedicated to the Palestinians, and of course, the church repeated its age-old support, traditional support, political support, also, for the Palestinian cause. Here, there is nothing new. I repeat, there is nothing new.

The new element is that today, the church can talk equally to the both sides. So he can tell to the Palestinians that they have the right to have a Palestinian state and he can tell to the Israeli side, that they have the full right of their own state. The church is fully aware of that. And the church is looking for peace and even trying to have a sort of mediation on peace between the two sides.

WENGE: So Mr. Cremonesi, then why at the beginning and even before this visit did the Vatican insist that this was strictly to be a visit to religious sites and a religious visit and not political? It has become political.

CREMONESI: That is obvious. The Pope always stressed the pilgrimage element of his own visit. That was said by the Vatican many times before the visit and is repeated today. But today, the Pope, in a way, was pushed, as it was obvious. And the Vatican diplomats already forecasted this - was pushed by the two sides to repeat the conditional support of the Palestinians.

WENGE: As you have said, there was mention from the Pope in his speeches about the need for a Palestinian homeland. However, what has been noticeably absent from his comments is any reference to Jerusalem itself.

CREMONESI: Of course. As I was saying before, Jerusalem here is extremely - sorry - the Pope here is extremely diplomatic. He's extremely careful as he was yesterday in the meeting with President Weizman and Prime Minister Barak in not mentioning Jerusalem - is not in spiritual terms. He did the same here.

He listened carefully to what the Palestinians said. He listened carefully to the speech of Arafat when the Chairman, the Palestinian Chairman repeated three or four times, "al Quds, al Quds, al Quds. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem." But he never supported - he never endorsed any claim for both sides.

And here, there is a kind of change, another element which is new or relatively new in the position of the church. The church, until the mid `70s, early `80s, supported the idea of "corpus separatus," so-called, or internationalization (ph) of the holy city. Today, they're only talking about international guarantees for the holy place, leaving totally aside the political arrangements, the possibility of dividing the city or having the city as a capital of only one of the two sides.

WENGE: Mr. Cremonesi, will the Pope's visit have any impact at all, either symbolically or otherwise, on the peace process?

CREMONESI: Well, indirectly it will have - the Pope will stress the need to get through to a political arrangement. He's coming here, and that's another element. When people ask to themselves, how come the Pope became - was elected - this last Pope was elected in 1978. He traveled all over abroad in the world. It is over 91 or 93 - abroad. How come, only now, he comes to the holy places?

And the answer is very simple. He's coming here because only now there is a reasonable hope to get soon to the end of the peace process. We are only now talking about the final stages. So the church didn't want to be entangled, so to speak, in the local clashes. So it's coming now and he will try to give his own blessing, even if, I would say, it could have a kind of boomerang effect and it could even heat up old tensions.

WENGE: Mr. Cremonesi, the relations today between the Vatican and Israel - how are they?

CREMONESI: Well, they are difficult, diplomatically, it's true. In 1994, they got to the fundamental agreement. It's true that the two sides are of now, in exchange of full ambassadors. There's a Nuncio (ph) in Jerusalem. There is regular talk, there are regular linkages - connections between the two sides. But of course, it is difficult.

We will see tomorrow. Tomorrow, the Pope will be in Yad Vashem, the museum of the Holocaust in Jerusalem. Again, the question of the (INAUDIBLE) of the church or the question of the so-called "silence of the Pius XII" during the Holocaust will come out. The Pope is asked more and more to be more specific in his asking for pardon, for forgiveness, vis-a-vis, the Jews. I don't think that it looks like the church will go much further.

The Pope, already in 1993 - 1998, sorry - asked (INAUDIBLE) encyclica, which asked for pardon for the behavior of the church, the famous encyclica on the Shoah, on the Holocaust. Only two weeks ago, again, there was the same wording from the Vatican. I don't think it doesn't look like he will mention specifically Pius XII, but also for a very simple reason. There is a question of a papal infallibility.

The Pope is the Vicarius (ph) of God in the world. The church - the Pope cannot condemn the behavior of another Pope without putting in doubt the theological foundation of the Catholic faith.

WENGE: And that's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Ralph Wenge. We'll leave you now, with pictures from the Pope's day in Bethlehem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POPE JOHN PAUL II: How can I fail to praise the God of all humanity, whose ways are mysterious and whose love knows no ends? How can I fail to praise the God for bringing me, in this year of the great jubilee to the place of the Savior's birth? Bethlehem is the house of my.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

END

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