Holy Land a challenge for pope

JERUSALEM - Palestinian Christians have a particularly large cross to bear - cut off from land, restricted in movement, exposed to violence and often unable to visit the sacred sites where Jesus once walked.

Can a new pope in Rome help ease their burden? Possibly, some faithful say, but only if he can persuade people to see Christians in the Middle East as a vulnerable minority.

The Holy Land - home to the ancient Jewish temples, birthplace of Christ, site of Muhammad's ascension to heaven - is an important testing ground for Pope Benedict XVI's stated goal of improving ties between faiths.

His predecessor, John Paul II, made great strides in that area, but his focus on Christian-Jewish and Christian-Muslim relations during a historic 2000 visit to the Holy Land left many local Catholics feeling slighted.

Many wonder whether Benedict can do any better at bolstering his beleaguered Catholic flock, who comprise just over 1 percent of the population in Israel and the Palestinian territories and whose numbers are dwindling because of widespread emigration.

"The Christians are in a precarious situation throughout the Middle East," said Daniel Rossing, director of the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian relations. "Rather than perceiving them as in a very precarious position as a minority there's a tendency to simply see them as a part of the vast dominant Christian world."

Some of the 250,000 Christians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, half of whom belong to Catholic denominations, say they are victims of Israeli discrimination and Muslim antipathy.

"It's not easy being Christian here," said George Nassar, a 44-year-old Catholic bookseller in Jerusalem. "But as the old pope and the new pope have told us, we don't have to be afraid."

Most agree the best solution to the plight of Palestinian Christians would be an end to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. But the 78-year-old German pontiff may find himself with even less influence than his predecessor had.

Some Palestinians fear German guilt over the Holocaust could make Benedict leery of criticizing the Jewish state.

They wonder whether he'll continue John Paul's opposition to Israel's West Bank separation barrier that cut off many Bethlehem Christians from their farmland, for instance, or if he'll oppose Israeli land policies in Nazareth that restrict non-Jewish ownership, causing housing shortages for Christians.

Some Israelis, meanwhile, are apprehensive about Benedict's membership in the Hitler Youth as a teenager in Nazi Germany. Such membership was compulsory, but that didn't stop the mass circulation Yediot Ahronot from running these HEAD:s upon his election as pope: "White smoke, black past" and "From the Nazi youth movement to the Vatican."

Other Israelis, however, welcomed Benedict's papacy, noting his intimate involvement in John Paul's historic decisions to apologize for the church's past anti-Semitism and forge diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican.

"We are sure that under his papacy we will continue to see a strengthening relationship between Israel and the Vatican and between the Jewish people and the church," said foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

Palestinians, too, congratulated the new pope but are urging him to underline the official Vatican position that Jerusalem be a city open to all. Four years of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed have resulted in most Muslims and Christians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip not being allowed to visit the holy city.

"What's going on here in the city of peace and the city of religion is something that is against all religion," said Adnan Husseini, director of the Islamic Trust, or Waqf. "The pope should care about this because this is the Holy Land."

Religious tensions often boil over.

Aside from the well-known enmity between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims, clashes periodically erupt between other groups, including recent violence between Druse and Christians in an upper Galilee village that left nine people injured.

The various Christian sects often quarrel among themselves over sites like Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried.

Christians and Muslims in Nazareth are engaged in a heated dispute over attempts to build a mosque next to one of Christendom's holiest sites, the Church of the Annunciation.

"Religious leaders have a role to play to help political leaders find peace," said Father Shawki Baterian, chancellor of the Catholic Church's Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem, but he cautioned against expecting that the pope can wipe out centuries of tensions.