JERUSALEM (CNS): As Israeli-Palestinian violence continued in the Holy Land, Pope John Paul II’s personal envoy, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, prayed with the local Christian community, bringing with him a message of peace.
“To pray for peace in the Middle East is both the surest and the hardest test as to whether we take prayer and peace seriously, prayer and peace together, prayer and peace as a consequence of each other,” he said in his homily at a Mass for peace at the church of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem on the World Day of Peace, January 1.
During his Holy Land visit, the cardinal also celebrated Mass in Bethlehem and met with Israeli President Moshe Katzav and Ahmad Qurie, better known as Abu Ala, the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The cardinal presented both men with a copy of the Pope’s World Day of Peace message.
“Every place in the world, peace is constantly threatened, often wounded, sometimes mortally … If (Pope John Paul II) chose to send me among you in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem, this is because here more than anywhere else, and today more than ever before, peace is an urgent aspiration and prayer is thus equally urgent,” Cardinal Etchegaray said at the Jerusalem Mass.
