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John Paul II First Pope To Enter Mosque
DAMASCUS, May 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - John Paul II became the first ever pope to set foot in a mosque Sunday, as he entered the Omayyad mosque in Damascus on his historic visit to Syria to cheers from a watching crowd.
He passed into the courtyard of the mosque, which was built on the site of a Christian church in 705 AD and contains the tomb of Saint John the Baptist, at 6:06 p.m. (1806 GMT).
As the ornate doors were closed behind him, he went to a side room where he removed his shoes as the faith requires and was given an introduction to the mosque, a jewel of Islamic architecture, by officials.
Wearing white slippers and leaning on a cane but walking unaided, he then crossed the courtyard to the prayer hall where the tomb of the Baptist, venerated by Muslims and Christians alike, is located.
As the accompanying Muslim and Catholic clergy stood by, the pope, clothed in white, stood with head bowed at the tomb, in one minute's meditation.
They then moved to seats placed beneath a mosaic in the courtyard, between Corinthian columns, where they heard a recital from the Holy Qur'an, before an address by Syria's Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Zyada.
The minister, taking up a recurring theme of slamming Israel, during the pope's visit, by Syrian officials which has angered the Jewish state, said: "We have to be aware of what is being plotted against us by the enemies of God, Zionist hatred against Islam and Christianity."
The pope, for his part, said Muslims and Christians need "to offer each other forgiveness" for all the times they "have offended one another," and never more be regarded as being in conflict.
"For all the times that Muslims and Christians have offended one another, we need to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and to offer each other forgiveness," he said in an address at the mosque.
"It is my ardent hope that Muslim and Christian religious leaders and teachers will present our two great religious communities as communities in respectful dialogue, never more as communities in conflict," he said.
The pope, before entering the Omayyad mosque, had earlier also hammered home the message of inter-religious harmony, calling for understanding, respect and peace among Christians, Muslims and Jews in the troubled Middle East.
"In this holy land, Christians, Muslims and Jews are called to work together, with confidence and boldness, and to work to bring about without delay the day when the legitimate rights of all peoples are respected and they can live in peace and mutual understanding," he said.
His sermon at an open-air high mass at the Abbassyin stadium here on the second day of his visit to Syria was based on the role of Saint Paul, who was converted from a persecutor of Christians to a leading apostle of the faith on his way to Damascus.
The pope called on the people of the region to "continue tirelessly your efforts to build a society marked by fraternity, justice and solidarity, where everyone's human dignity and fundamental rights are recognized."
His reference to the Jews, whom his Syrian hosts are only referring to in the context of the enemy Israel, came after his calls for Christian unity and closer ties between Christians and Muslims.
The congregation of some 45,000 inside the stadium, plus thousands more gathered outside, included faithful from all parts of the old patriarchate of Antioch, which includes Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and beyond.
Clergy of other Christian rites and Muslims were present at the mass, reflecting the theme of closer ties within the Christian communion and with Islam.
But the leader of Lebanon's Maronite Catholics, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, who is at odds with the Syrian authorities over the presence of 35,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon, is boycotting the pope's visit.
The pope, who has already included Greece and will take in Malta on Tuesday, following in the footsteps of Saint Paul, had went on to the Greek Catholic patriarchate of Damascus for lunch.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls called the first-ever papal visit to a Muslim place of worship an "historic gesture" Sunday.
"Over 2,000 years of Christianity no pope has ever entered a mosque, a place sacred to Islam," he told journalists.
"The gesture is historic but also for the future, as it represents a major step in the dialogue between Christians and Muslims," he said.
"It is a way of overcoming obstacles; the pope has been hoping for a long time to be able to have a direct meeting," he continued.
He stressed the desire of the pope to "focus on what unites the three monotheistic religions, all three daughters of Abraham," recalling that in 1986 John Paul was the first pope to enter a synagogue.
Syria's mufti Sheikh Ahmed Kaftaro said the pope's visit "will strengthen coexistence between the sons of heavenly religions and I hope that it will result in serious common action to save the Palestinians - Christians and Muslims - from the massacres being carried out by Israel."
As it did when the pope went to Israel and the Palestinian territories last year, politics and religion have become inextricably mixed.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad infuriated Israelis with Saturday's welcome speech for the pope, when he accused them of "trying to kill religions in the same way [the Jews] betrayed Jesus Christ, in the same way they tried to kill the Prophet Mohammad [SAW]."
In the U.S., a Jewish leader, Rabbi Marvin Hier, on Sunday condemned Bashar al-Assad's comments in welcoming the pope to Damascus as the words of an "anti-Semite."
Israelis and Zionists consistently label anyone critical of Israeli policy as "anti-semitic".
"Rather than use the occasion of a first ever visit of a pope to his country by offering his people a vision of peace and tolerance ... Bashar al-Assad continues the path of his father by offering up an almost daily menu of hate and bigotry," Hier said.
The comments, Hier told news agencies in a telephone interview from the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, "sounds more like the words of an ignorant anti-Semite than those of a western-educated head of state."
Senior Israeli officials in Jerusalem Sunday also blasted what one called "ignoble remarks" on Israel and the Jews by the Syrian president, and urged the pope to address the comments.
"Personally, I would like to see a response by Pope John Paul II to these words, which threaten to revive anti-semitism," said Avi Pazner, Israel's first ambassador to the Vatican and currently diplomatic adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"They are ignoble and totally unacceptable remarks which clearly demonstrate the Syrian president's anti-semitism," said Pazner.
"The Syrian president has adopted for himself the accusation of deicide [the act of killing a divine being or a symbolic substitute of such a being, the killer or destroyer of a god] which the Catholic Church in the past leveled against the Jews but rejected in the 1963 Vatican Council," commented Pavzner.
On Monday the pope visits Quneitra, a town on the Golan Heights occupied for seven years by Israeli troops and destroyed by them when they left, to say a prayer for peace, which he has written himself, in the ruins of the Greek Orthodox Church.
The Vatican spokesman said the site "was the most suitable for praying in peace."
Most of the Golan remains in Israeli hands, and Navarro-Walls said John Paul II was using the occasion of his visit to Damascus to recall "certain ethical principles: no occupation of land by force, and respect for United Nations resolutions."
"If the pope does not remind people of these principles, who is going to do it?," he said.
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