wfn.org | Envoy Returns to Bethlehem, Issues Call for Peace

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For information, contatct:
Fr. Raed Abusahlia
Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
P.O.Box  14152 - Jerusalem 97500
E-mail address: latinpat@actcom.co.il
Patriarchate's Homepage: www.lpj.org

BETHLEHEM,  May 12, 2002 - John Paul II4s special envoy to the Holy Land
marked the liberation of the Basilica of the Nativity calling for peace among
Israelis and Palestinians.

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray returned to Bethlehem from Rome and presided over
the Mass today in the St. Catherine's Church, which is next to the basilica
that had been under siege for 39 days.

"Shalom! Salaam!" said the cardinal, to the applause of thousands of faithful
present.

"We have to see beyond Bethlehem and take in a view of the entire Holy Land,"
he said.

The Israeli army had surrounded the basilica after it became a sanctuary on
April 2 to more than 200 Palestinians, many of them armed.

"Peace among men, peace among the cities, only can arise and increase if it
exists first in each man, in each city," the cardinal declared.

A few feet within the basilica, the Greek-Orthodox Patriarch Irenaeus I
reconsecrated the building that, according to tradition, housed the cave in
which Jesus was born.

Franciscans, Greek Orthodox and Armenian religious, with the help of
parishioners, were helping to clean the basilica, which had been littered and
fouled by the Palestinians.

In a press statement to the Rome-based news service Zenit, Father Giovanni
Battistelli, superior of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, noted the
damage done to the building.  But he added: "The memory that we keep forever
in our hearts is, moreover, of the heroism of the religious men and women who
have resisted throughout this authentic 4forty days.4"

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