Scottish Catholic Observer

“More than once we have been on the verge of peace, but the evil one, employing a variety of means, has succeeded in blocking it,” the Pope said last Sunday at an historic evening prayer summit in the Vatican Gardens. “That is why we are here, because we know and we believe that we need the help of God.”

The Holy Father addressed his remarks to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during an ‘invocation for peace’ in the Holy Land, to which he had invited them during his visit to the Holy Land weeks ago

“I was young, now I am old. I experienced war, I tasted peace,” President Peres said in an English portion of his statement.

“Never will I forget the bereaved families, parents and children, who paid the cost of war. And all my life I shall never stop to act for peace for the generations to come.

“Let’s all of us join hands and make it happen.”

According to an official translation of President Abbas’ prepared Arabic text, the Palestinian president said: “We want peace for us and for our neighbours. We seek prosperity and peace of mind for ourselves and for others alike.”

The event, at which Christians, Muslims and Jews prayed in each other’s presence, was almost certainly the first of its kind at the Vatican, according to Fr Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office.

The starting time of 7pm was chosen in part to avoid the midday heat, yet temperatures were still in the mid 20s less than an hour earlier, when President Peres arrived by car at the Vatican guesthouse, where the Pope lives. President Abbas arrived at 6.30pm, and 15 minutes later the two presidents embraced in the presence of the Pope.

“Nice to see you,” Presidents Peres and Abbas told each other in English.

Joining the group was Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, whom Fr Lombardi had described as one of the event’s ‘four protagonists,’ and Franciscan Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, custos of the Holy Land and the principal coordinator of the event.

The five men rode together in a white mini van the short distance to the site of the ceremony, a triangular swath of lawn walled off by tall hedges along two sides.

The setting had been chosen, according to Father Lombardi, because of its ‘neutral’ appearance, lacking in religious imagery.

Pope Francis and the two presidents sat at the corner of the triangle where the two hedges met.

At the end of the ceremony, which lasted about an hour and 45 minutes, the Pope, patriarch and the two presidents kissed each other on both cheeks, then took up shovels and added dirt to the base of a newly planted olive tree.

The men then spent about 15 minutes speaking privately inside the nearby Casina Pio IV, a 16th-century villa which now houses several Pontifical academies.