Content provided in partnership with

A papal bridge too far?

Christian Century, May 23, 2001 by Peggy Polk

A WEAK AND AILING Pope John Paul II is determined to use much of his remaining energy to build bridges, but critics faulted his recent dramatic gestures to the Greek Orthodox Church and to Islam as overreaching.

The Catholic pontiff returned home May 9, nine days before his 81st birthday, from a pilgrimage "in the footsteps of St. Paul" to Greece, Syria and Malta that saw him offer an apology to Greek Orthodox leaders for the past sins of Catholics and become the first pope to enter a mosque. The Vatican publicly voiced satisfaction with the trip, but some inside the Vatican reportedly questioned the need for the apology in Athens and contended that the pope was used in Damascus for political ends.

Most Popular Articles in Reference: The importance of understanding organizational culture; Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students; What factors attract foreign direct investment?; Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...; How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques; More »

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls cited as high points of the pilgrimage the pope's "absolutely unforeseen success" in Athens, his visit to the mosque in Damascus to balance his 1986 visit to the Rome synagogue, and the "failure" of attempts to politicize his appeal for peace in the Middle East from a ruined church on the Golan Heights.

But Vittorio Messori, the Italian journalist with whom John Paul wrote his 1994 best-selling collection of essays, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, said in a front-page article in the influential Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that many in the Vatican believe the pope has gone too far. "This pope is exaggerating. And the latest trip confirms it. John Paul II distorts the church's past, risks exposing it to humiliation, defers to its persecutors and understands ecumenism to be like a syncretism where one religion seems as worthy as another," Messori said in summing up the criticism.

The pope's apology to Greek Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulos was a prayer to God for forgiveness "for the occasions past and present when the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by actions and omissions against their Orthodox brothers and sisters." John Paul, the first pope to visit Greece since well before the Great Schism of 1054 divided the Eastern and Western churches, said Catholics of today feel "deep regret" over the Crusaders' sacking of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, in 1204, which remains a major Orthodox grievance.

The form of apology resembled one the Vatican offered to the Jews in 1998 for the failure of many Catholics to actively oppose the World War II Holocaust. Jewish leaders complained that the Vatican did not go far enough. But the Orthodox archbishop applauded the pope's call for forgiveness, embraced him and agreed to recite the Lord's Prayer together. In a letter to John Paul on his departure from Athens, Christodoulos said he was grateful for the "brief but fruitful visit."

Commenting on the newly won rapport, the papal spokesman said in Malta that as John Paul and Christodoulos prayed together, "it seemed to me that the question of the lack of full communion had disappeared." The pope's critics were not impressed. They said John Paul had no need to apologize for the sacking of Constantinople because Pope Innocent III had excommunicated the Crusaders who took part in it, thus dissociating the church from their actions.

Criticism of John Paul's three-day stop in Syria centered on his failure to respond directly to attacks on Israel by President Bashar al-Assad; the grand mufti of Syria, Ahmed Kuftaro; and other Syrian officials. Welcoming the pope to Syria, Assad said Israelis were murdering and torturing Palestinians and compared Israeli "aggression" against Christian and Muslim holy sites to the betrayal and torture of Christ. In Israel, Assad's attack was labeled `"an anti-Semitic diatribe," while in the U.S. a number of Jewish groups were sharply critical of the remarks and the pope's failure to respond.

During John Paul's visit to the Mosque of the Umayyads May 6, the grand mufti called for Christians and Muslims to stand together against the "atrocious aggression" of Jews and Zionists. The pope answered the attacks only indirectly at a mass attended by many Muslims and members of the Greek Orthodox Church. He urged all Christians, Muslims and Jews to work together for peace in the Middle East. He called on Muslim and Christian religious leaders to "present our two great religious communities as communities in respectful dialogue, nevermore as communities in conflict."

Visiting the ghost town of Kuneitra on the Golan Heights, where Syria and Israel fought two wars, the pope kneeled inside a gutted Greek Orthodox church and prayed for a "conversion of heart" among Arabs and Israelis alike to bring a just peace to the region. "If Israel thinks there is a need to respond, let them respond," Navarro-Valls said. "We were guests here. Let it be very clear that this is not a defense of Assad's discourse, but the pope answered with a list of international principles."

The Vatican ignored criticism of the pope for choosing to make his historic gesture toward Islam in a mosque built over a razed Christian church. Christians and Muslims had shared the site of the Church of St. John the Baptist until 706 when Caliph al-Walid of the Umayyad dynasty demolished the church to make way for a mosque, giving Christians what is now the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary in exchange.

A papal bridge too far?

Christian Century, May 23, 2001 by Peggy Polk

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Business

Most Popular Articles in Reference

Most Popular Publications in Reference