{"id":14587,"date":"2014-05-24T02:59:02","date_gmt":"2014-05-24T02:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/pope-francis-starts-middle-east-visit\/"},"modified":"2014-05-24T02:58:50","modified_gmt":"2014-05-24T02:58:50","slug":"pope-francis-starts-middle-east-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/pope-francis-starts-middle-east-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis Starts Middle East Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{The Pope is due to arrive in Jordan at the start of a three-day visit to the Middle East which will also take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories.}}<\/p>\n

Pope Francis will first travel to Amman, where he will celebrate Mass in a stadium, and later meet Syrian refugees.<\/p>\n

The official purpose of the visit is to improve ties with the Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n

But correspondents say many will expect Pope Francis to use his influence to try to ease tensions in the region.<\/p>\n

{{Restraining orders}}<\/p>\n

The Pope will be accompanied by a rabbi and an imam – friends from his native Argentina – and hopes to improve relations between Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Holy Land.<\/p>\n

His journey comes only a few weeks after the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed.<\/p>\n

Israel has issued restraining orders against several Jewish right-wing activists this week over concerns that they could try to disrupt the visit.<\/p>\n

Police said offensive “anti-Christian graffiti” was discovered on the wall of a church in the southern city of Beersheba on Friday.<\/p>\n

The Pope’s journey marks the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting in Jerusalem between Pope Paul VI and the head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Athenagoras.<\/p>\n

The meeting ended 900 years of separation and enduring antagonism between the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Pope Francis will travel to Bethlehem in the West Bank and preside over Mass in Manger Square, near the site where Jesus is believed to have been born.<\/p>\n

He will also meet the current Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch, Bartholomew, and they will sign a declaration of friendship.<\/p>\n

His schedule on Monday is set to include a visit to the al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem’s Old City followed by the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis will be the fourth leader of the Roman Catholic Church to visit Jerusalem, after Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who went there in 2009.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{The Pope is due to arrive in Jordan at the start of a three-day visit to the Middle East which will also take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories.}} Pope Francis will first travel to Amman, where he will celebrate Mass in a stadium, and later meet Syrian refugees. The official purpose of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000052329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000052329,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14587.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14587.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14587.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14587.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14587.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14587.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000052329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14587"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14587"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}