{"id":1280,"date":"2009-03-09T18:29:04","date_gmt":"2009-03-09T18:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/03\/pope-to-visit-holy-land-in-may.php"},"modified":"2009-03-09T18:29:04","modified_gmt":"2009-03-09T18:29:04","slug":"pope-to-visit-holy-land-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/pope-to-visit-holy-land-in-may","title":{"rendered":"Pope to Visit Holy Land in May"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI will visit Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories for a week this May, the pope confirmed on Sunday (Mar. 8).<br \/>\n&#8220;I will make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to ask the Lord, as I visit the places sanctified by his earthly passage, for the precious gift of unity and peace for the Middle East and all humanity,&#8221; Benedict told a crowd in St. Peter&#8217;s Square, following his weekly recitation of the Angelus prayer.<br \/>\nBenedict&#8217;s itinerary, still unconfirmed by the Vatican, is expected to begin in the Jordanian capital of Amman.<br \/>\nIn Israel, the pope will visit Jerusalem&#8217;s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and offer Mass in the town of Nazareth. He will also visit Bethlehem, in the Palestinian-ruled territory of the West Bank.<br \/>\nThe pope, however, is not expected to visit Yad Vashem&#8217;s museum, where the Vatican has voiced objections over an exhibit that suggests wartime Pope Pius XII could have done more to protect Jews.<br \/>\nBenedict&#8217;s will be the second official trip by a pope to Israel, following a visit by Pope John Paul II in 2000, and an unofficial 1964 visit by Pope Paul VI.<br \/>\n<em>By Francis X. Rocca<br \/>\nReligion News Service<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI will visit Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories for a week this May, the pope confirmed on Sunday (Mar. 8). &#8220;I will make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to ask the Lord, as I visit the places sanctified by his earthly passage, for the precious gift of unity&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pope to Visit Holy Land in May<\/title>\n<meta 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unity&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/pope-to-visit-holy-land-in-may","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-03-09T18:29:04+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/pope-to-visit-holy-land-in-may","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/pope-to-visit-holy-land-in-may","name":"Pope to Visit Holy Land in 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A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. 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