The Pope's Surprising Trip

delivered May 30, 2014

Did you see Monday’s New York Times in print?

Front and center was a photograph of Pope Francis praying at the wall.  

The wall that separates Bethlehem from the rest of Israel, the security fence.  On it was graffiti comparing the fence to the wall surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto, a strong comparison to say the least.  

It was an unscheduled stop, made instinctively, from a pope who said on his way back to Rome on the aircraft: “The most authentic gestures are those that we don’t think about, those that come to us, aren’t they?”

In politics it is called optics--that is, a photo that speaks louder than any words.  In political campaigns they are usually heavily scripted to enforce a point that “campaign managers” want to enter public consciousness.

This Pope appears to be using his conscience to guide his optics--and many of them would appear to challenge the deeply entrenched narratives in the Middle East.  

In fact, the Pope embraced powerful symbols on both sides during his brief pilgrimage.

The next day he was at the other wall--the Western Wall, a place where his predecessors have been photographed.

He also visited the grave of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism who never lived to see the modern state of Israel.  He laid a wreath there.  

At Yad Vashem, the memorial to the Shoah, he didn’t just put a wreath in memory in place for the Six Million; he kissed each survivor present on the hand.

He said in his speech there, “A great evil has befallen us, as such that has never occurred,” and referred to the Holocaust by its Hebrew term, Shoah.

“Grant us the grace to be ashamed of what men have done, to be ashamed of this massive idolatry.”

He also made an unscheduled stop Monday at a memorial for terror victims In Israel during an already packed itinerary.  

More on the Pope’s optics:

On Sunday, the pope entered the West Bank directly from Jordan rather than stopping first in Israel as previous popes had done.

In referring to Jesus’ bending down to help others, when some burly men prepared to carry a doctor in a wheelchair up four steps to the stage for a papal blessing, Francis instead rose from his gilded chair and walked down to embrace the doctor where she was.

In a speech in the West Bank, he referred explicitly to the “state of Palestine.”

In Jerusalem, he held a Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, thought to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Francis prayed for Christian unity with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher. The church itself is managed by various fiefdoms among Christianity.

It was first time various branches of Christianity prayed together inside the centuries-old structure where Christians believe Jesus was buried and rose from the dead. They usually are governed by strict rules of separation dating back to the Ottoman Empire.

In his work to counteract the narrative of the impossibility of any positive outcomes between Israelis and Palestinians, the Pope invited Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, and Israeli President Shimon Peres to a prayer summit for peace at the Vatican next month. Both leaders accepted the invitation despite the collapse of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations last month.

“Peacemaking demands first and foremost respect for the dignity and freedom of every human person, which Jews, Christians and Muslims alike believe to be created by God and destined to eternal life,” Francis said in a speech at Peres’ official residence. “This shared conviction enables us resolutely to pursue peaceful solutions to every controversy and conflict.”

The pope’s trip came 50 years after the first first papal visit to Israel, by Pope Paul VI in 1964. During that trip, Paul VI did not meet with Israeli leaders and did not refer to the State of Israel in his speeches.

Much has changed in the interim. Israel and the Vatican established diplomatic relations in 1994 and Pope Francis offered rich words of praise for Israel’s leaders.

“Mr. President, you know that I pray for you and I know that you are praying for me,” Francis said in his speech at Peres’ residence. “I assure you of my continued prayers for the institutions and the citizens of the State of Israel.”

Francis repeatedly praised Jordan for hosting 600,000 refugees of the Syrian crisis, and pointedly urged world powers “not to leave Jordan alone in the task of meeting the humanitarian emergency.” Detouring from his prepared remarks at the baptismal site, the site where it is believed Jesus was baptised, the pope demanded, “Who is selling these weapons that are feeding war?”

“Let’s pray for these criminals who are selling weapons, fueling hatred, that they will convert,” he said under the large stone dome of a church still under construction at a huge national park Jordan is developing to attract Christian tourists. “May everyone get over this idea that problems can be solved with weapons.”

The pope, again going off script, responded, “May God protect us from the fear of change.”

At almost every turn, the pope was photographed standing alone at spots rich with symbolism. (An Israeli journalist joked on Twitter that someone should whisper into the pope’s ear that he need not “pray at every wall in the Middle East.”)

Pope Francis himself is careful not to oversell the coming prayer meeting. “It will be an encounter to pray, not for the purposes of mediation,” he said on the plane. “Prayer is important. It helps.”

And so do the Pope’s optics on what could be called his radical visit to the Middle East.