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Schedule set for papal trip
No political overtones expected
Pope John Paul will celebrate an open-air Mass, meet with Islamic leaders and Syria’s president, and travel to the Golan Heights when he visits the Middle Eastern country in May.
Melkite Catholic Archbishop Izdor Battikha of Damasacus revealed in March that the Holy Father would meet Muslim religious leaders at the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, making the first visit ever by a Roman pontiff to a mosque.
The Pope will begin the May 5-8 trip with a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad at the Damascus airport. He will also celebrate Mass at the Abbassiyen sports stadium, for a congregation that is expected to include thousands of the Christians who make up 16 percent of the Syrian population. He will also visit el-Kunaitra, a town on the Golan Heights that was returned to Syrian custody last year after years of Israeli occupation. There the Pontiff will plant an olive tree, symbolic of the desire for peace.
All of the Christian patriarchs of the region will be invited to participate in the ceremonies on the papal schedule, the archbishop said. He specifically mentioned that Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir of the Maronite Catholic Church would be allowed to attend, despite the fact that the Syrian government has heatedly protested that patriarch’s public criticism of the continued Syrian military presence in Lebanon (see story below).
Although the Pope’s visit to the Omayyad Mosque will be a historic occasion, the Islamic leader of Damascus moved quickly to quash rumors that he and the Pope would pray together—rumors which had caused consternation among Muslim traditionalists. Grand Mufti Ahmed Kiftaro expressed “astonishment at the circulation of such inaccurate reports.” The reports of a joint prayer session were “completely untrue,” he said. And he went on to explain: “Co-existence between Muslims and Christians does not require a joint prayer. It depends on a serious and principled action to support the causes of the oppressed in the world and to protect humanity from dangers surrounding it.”
Bishop Battikha confirmed that the Pope would not pray at the mosque, and pointed out that the visit was a natural extension of the Pope’s Jubilee pilgrimage to “the historic sites connected with the history of salvation.” The head of St. John the Baptist is reportedly buried inside the Omayyad Mosque, he pointed out. In a remark that illustrated the sensitivity of the issue, the bishop said that the Holy Father would take “a quick silent glance” at the tomb before leaving the Islamic house of worship.