Pope Benedict to Visit Ramallah During First Trip to Israel

Pope Benedict XVI will travel to Ramallah during his inaugural trip to Jerusalem, where he will meet the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and pay a visit to the Aida refugee camp.

The details, released yesterday by the Vatican, form part of a six-day tour that will see the pontiff meeting key figures from across the political and religious spectrum. His itinerary features stops at the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount and the Church of the Nativity. He will also greet faith leaders - including the grand mufti of Jerusalem and the country's two chief rabbis - and the prime minister and president of Israel.

The schedule resembles the one designed in 2000 for his predecessor John Paul II, who was the first pontiff to visit the region and was lauded for his inter-faith dialog, but Benedict's papacy has severely tested relations between Catholics and Jews. Relations almost collapsed earlier this year when the pope lifted the excommunication of Holocaust-denying priest British-born Bishop Richard Williamson. Intense dialog and diplomacy healed the rift but there is unease about a pope known for his traditionalism.

There also remains a stand-off over the canonization of the wartime pope Pius XII, who is accused of ignoring the Holocaust and failing to challenge Hitler, with a sign of this tension at Yad Vashem's museum. An inscription states he negotiated a concordat with the Nazis, maintained neutrality during the war and took no initiatives to save Jews. Benedict will go to the vast complex of Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the Holocaust but will not enter the museum itself.

His visit to Jerusalem follows a successful trip to Africa, where millions of Catholics flocked to see him. However, such ambitious trips are likely to disappear from the papal calendar. Yesterday, the Vatican envoy to Britain and the archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, said that Benedict's advancing age - he is 82 - would prevent him from extensive travel in the future.