At the same time, President Trump announced plans to eventually relocate the US Embassy to the holy city.

Pope Francis responded to the change in US policy, saying he wants the "status quo" to remain.

He says he is "profoundly concerned" about recent developments concerning Jerusalem.

He declared the city a unique and sacred place for Christians, Jews and Muslims and that it has a "special vocation for peace."

He appealed "that everyone respects the status quo of the city," according to UN resolutions.

"I pray to the Lord that its identity is preserved and strengthened for the benefit of the Holy Land, the Middle East and the whole world ...

"... and that wisdom and prudence prevail to prevent new elements of tension from being added to a global context already convulsed by so many cruel conflicts," he said on Wednesday.

Others have expressed concern about Trump's decision.

The Middle East has strongly objected to the move.

Carefully worded rebukes have also flowed in from US allies.

The US position in 1947 held that Jerusalem was a corpus seperatum: an internationally controlled entity that belonged to neither Arab nor Jew.

Bit by bit this view has altered. Firstly it adopted a policy of "limited internationalisation", while still opposing both Arabs and Israelis claiming Jerusalem as their capital.

Nonetheless, Israel has sought to claim Jerusalem as its capital.

Following the six-day war in 1967, a new policy was adopted.

This held that neither Israelis nor Arabs could claim Jerusalem as their capital.

The Vatican has long sought an internationally guaranteed status for Jerusalem that safeguards its sacred character for Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Francis spoke by telephone on Tuesday with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, after President Donald Trump forewarned Abbas of his decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The Vatican said the call with Francis was made at Abbas's initiative.

Source

• The Washington Post
• The Washington Post
• National Catholic Register
• La Croix
• Zenit
• JSTOR
• Image: Time Magazine

Image:

By that standard, Francis showed that Catholicism on his watch is alive and kicking by delivering one of the greatest surprises of his papacy — a peace summit that's likely to have no immediate impact whatsoever on the Middle East peace process, but that yet still managed to feel like a historic turning point.

In truth, going in to Sunday's prayer with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres, neither the pope nor his advisers were expecting a miracle.

"Anybody who has even a minimum understanding of the situation would never think that as of Monday, peace will break out," said Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, a Franciscan priest based in the Middle East who organised the event.

The pope's lone ambition, he said, was to "open a path" that was previously closed.

Yet even if nothing results on the Israeli/Palestinian front, there are three reasons why tonight's "invocation for peace" was much more than a photo-op.

First, it represents a revitalization of the Vatican's diplomatic capacity after a period in which it hit a nadir. Continue reading.

John L. Allen Jr is associate editor at the Globe, specialising in coverage of the Vatican and the Catholic Church. He also serves as senior Vatican analyst for CNN, and was for 16 years a correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter.

Source: Boston Globe

Image: Patheos

During his recent visit to the Holy Land, Pope Francis invited Israel's Shimon Peres and Palestine's Mahmoud Abbas to meet and pray together.

On June 8, the two presidents met Pope Francis separately at the Casa Santa Marta guesthouse where the pontiff lives.

The three were joined by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I.

They were driven to the Vatican gardens, where prayer was interspersed with music.

The gardens were seen as a neutral place, free of the Christian symbolism that could offend the other two faiths.

Prayer was offered in the historic order of the three faiths, with Judaism first, then Christianity and finally Islam.

The prayers praised God for creation, asked pardon for sin, and requested the gift of peace.

The Pope and the two presidents spoke briefly about the need for peace.

Francis said the event was a "great sign of brotherhood which you offer as children of Abraham".

But history reveals that peace cannot come merely through human strength, Francis noted.

He blamed the failure of peace talks to date on the devil, but called for courage in efforts to find peace.

Mr Peres said making peace was a "holy mission".

Mr Abbas spoke of a "comprehensive and just peace".

Both presidents spoke of the significance of Jerusalem for their faith traditions.

The three also planted an olive tree.

Vatican officials said the event was not a bid to push peace talks.

It is rather a "time out" from negotiations, with prayer potentially sparking a desire for peace.

Mr Abbas and Mr Peres know each other well, having signed Oslo peace accords in 1993.

Mr Peres is due to step down in a few weeks and is not involved in peace negotiations.

In April, US-backed peace talks broke down.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told paramilitary officers in Jerusalem that there had been prayers for peace for thousands of years.

But ultimately peace would come through armed strength by Israel, he reportedly said.

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• BBC
• LA Times
• Image: Euronews

Speaking in Bethlehem, the Pope offered President Shimon Peres and President Mahmoud Abbas "my home in the Vatican as a place for this encounter of prayer".

"Building peace is difficult, but living without peace is a constant torment," the Pontiff said.

Representatives of Mr Peres and Mr Abbas were quick to accept the Pope's invitation.

According to Haaretz.com, a senior Israeli official said a Vatican envoy delivered the invitations to pray to Mr Abbas and Mr Peres several days before the Pope's visit.

In Bethlehem on May 25, Pope Francis made a stop next to the separation wall.

He placed his forehead on the concrete barrier that divides Israel and Palestinian territories and prayed in silence.

Pope Francis was clear in his demand that Palestine be recognised as a sovereign state.

But he held Palestinians to the same standard to recognise Israel.

After he arrived in Bethlehem, Pope Francis met with Mr Abbas and called for "the acknowledgment by all of the right of two states to exist and to live in peace and security within internationally recognised borders".

Ten thousand people were at a Mass celebrated by the Pope in Manger Square.

After Mass, Pope Francis had lunch with five Palestinian families and met with children at the Deheisheh Refugee Camp, where he urged them never to "abandon hope, and always look forward."

"You don't solve violence with violence," he told them.

Francis also labelled the current stalemate in peace efforts as "unacceptable".

The Pope went on to make a state visit to Tel Aviv, where he also issued an invitation to pray for peace.

Pope Francis then flew on to Jerusalem, where he joined Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I in prayer in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The meeting commemorated 50 years since Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras first met in 1964.

"Clearly we cannot deny the divisions which continue to exist among us, the disciples of Jesus," Pope Francis said.

"This sacred place makes us even more painfully aware of how tragic they are," he said.

On the first day of his three-day pilgrimage, the Pope visited Jordan.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• The Tablet
• CNN
• Haaretz
• Fox News
• Image: BBC

But the Vatican called for the further steps of a sovereign independent homeland for the Palestinian people and an internationally guaranteed special statute for the city of Jerusalem.

The decision to give the state of Palestine non-member observer status at the UN — the same status as the Holy See — was carried by 138 votes to 9, with 41 abstentions.

"For once the international community and the leaders of the nations had the courage not to be influenced by the pressures and to decide in conscience, without calculation," said the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Fouad Twal. "I am grateful and happy for this freedom."

Expressing "joy that I share with all Palestinians", Archbishop Twal said time would make it clear that the vote for the state of Palestine had advantages for Israel.

"It opens the possibility of returning to deal with a moderate and legitimised government," he said.

"I know these people: there is no person more reasonable than Abu Mazen [the familiar Arabic name of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] to return to the path of a final settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict."

Archbishop Twall said Abbas would return from New York as "a real president, the president of a state".

In Bethlehem and other centres of the West Bank, church bells rang out after the vote was announced.

But in Israel the government rejected the decision. It immediately announced plans for 3000 new settlement homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — some of them in a crucial part of the hoped-for Palestinian state — and said it would withhold more than $NZ1.2 million of taxes and customs dues collected for the Palestinian Authority.

Sources:

Vatican Radio

Catholic News Service

Fides

Associated Press

Image: Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem