Why both Vatican and Israel need pope’s trip to succeed

John L. Allen Jr.

This weekend Francis will become the fourth pope to visit Israel, and while the country is officially preparing to roll out the red carpet, there’s also alarm among organizers that the pontiff’s reception may not be uniformly positive.

Some Israelis, for instance, have taken the pope’s schedule as an implied snub. He arrives in Bethlehem on Sunday morning before proceeding to Tel Aviv, meaning he’ll visit the Palestinian Territories before he sets foot in Israel.


Bethlehem is traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Jesus and is home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, so it’s a logical place for a pope to go. It is also, however, where the palace of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is situated, and that fact doesn’t sit well with some sectors of Israeli opinion.

The Arutz Sheva news service, for instance, ran an editorial grousing that “the pope will begin his visit in the fictional and terrorist ‘State of Palestine’, and not in the real and democratic state of Israel.”

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