Vatican clash with Israel poses diplomatic challenge for new pope
AFP
Date: 07-26-05
VATICAN CITY (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI faces the first diplomatic row of his three-month-old pontificate after an irate Israel protested its omission from a recent papal message condemning terrorist attacks, just weeks after accepting an invitation to visit the country.
The Vatican sharply rebuked Israel on Monday, accusing it of trying to "willingly deform" the pope's condemnation of terrorism.
Israel had angrily protested its omission when the pope, in a Sunday Angelus address watched by millions, condemned recent terrorist bombings in Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Britain.
The spat poses a diplomatic challenge to the German-born pope only a few weeks before he is to visit the Cologne synagogue during the first foreign visit of his pontificate. It will be only the second papal visit to a synagogue in the 2,000 year history of the Roman Catholic Church.
Though the main reason for his visit is to preach to an expected 400,000 young Catholics at the World Youth Day celebrations, Benedict XVI will also address Muslim and Jewish leaders while in Germany.
The Jewish State's ambassador to the Holy See, Oded Ben-Hur, is on holiday in Israel and embassy staff said he was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
The first casualty of the row is likely to be delicate ongoing negotiations between Israel and the Holy See on the unconcluded Fundamental Agreement which underpins the establishment of formal diplomatic relations in June 1994.
Reports by the Catholic agency Asianews said the row was simply "a smokescreen" for the abandonment of the latest round of negotiations which were due to take place the same day.
In a strongly worded letter earlier this year, the US Bishops' Conference accused Israel of being "hesitant and fitful" in its conduct of negotiations on implementing the Fundamental Agreement.
The talks appear to have stumbled on the Roman Catholic Church's demand for tax exemptions and guaranteed access to the courts in disputes over religious property.
Riccardo Di Segni, Rome's chief rabbi, said he hoped the slip-up was due to "a simple distraction on the part of Benedict XVI."
"I hope also that there won't be other occasions of this type of omission, either on the Vatican side or the Jewish side, because we mustn't forget this is about terrorist acts and bombings."
Italy's Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione, a staunch conservative Catholic whose outspoken views on gays thwarted his candidacy for the EU Commission last year, sought to pour oil on troubled waters.
"When an incident like this happens you put a lid on it and that's enough," he told reporters during a visit to the Rome synagogue as part of a Jewish festival.
"It can happen to anyone to forget the name of your own girlfriend when you go around talking to people....but that doens't mean you don't love her."
The Israeli foreign ministry said the pope's failure to refer to similar outrages in Israel, such as a Palestinian suicide bomber killing five Israelis in the town of Netanya the week before, "strengthens extremists opposed to peace and weakens the moderates."
In an unusual move, it called in the papal ambassador to Israel, Pietro Sambi, to voice its displeasure.
"It is surprising that someone has wanted to willingly deform the intentions of the Holy Father," said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls in an unusually prompt retort. He said Benedict XVI and Church hierarchy had made "numerous" condemnations of "all forms of terrorism, wherever it comes from and whoever it is against."
"With regards to the reactions of the Israeli side to the fact that the Holy Father, in his Angelus on Sunday, did not mention Israel at the same time as other countries, it has to be kept in mind that the statements of Benedict XVI referred expressly to the attacks of those days," Navarro-Valls said.
On July 6, Benedict XVI accepted an invitation to visit Israel handed over by Communications Minister Dalia Itzik during an audience with the new pope at the Vatican.
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