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American Morning

Pontiff Continues Tour of Middle East Near Golan Heights

Aired May 07, 2001 - 10:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Pope John Paul II says the death of a Palestinian infant adds urgency to his appeal for peace in the Middle East. The pontiff is on a pilgrimage in the troubled region, and today he visited Syria; the second stop of the three-nation.

CNN's Brent Sadler has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Flanked by police outriders, Pope John Paul II's motorcade whisked into within eyesight of Israeli occupation forces on the Golan Heights. He arrives in the ruined city of Quneitra in a demilitarized zone administered by Syria.

On this day, thousands of people, including former inhabitants, have been assembled for the occasion. On regular days, the city is uninhabited and silent. Children bearing gifts are at hand.

Quneitra's rubble bears witness, claims Syria, of Israeli aggression past and present. The Greek Orthodox Church, which the pope enters, is little more than the shell of a building.

Stripped there and vandalized, claim church authorities here, by Israeli troops when they withdrew 27 years ago. Quneitra's strong images of devastation are deliberately left untouched so that Syrian- escorted visitors like the pope can absorb what happened.

But the head of the Roman Catholic Church didn't come here to take sides, rather to fervently pray for peace in an area which lies at the very heart of the territorial dispute between Syria and Israel.

As a symbol of the peace he so much desires in the Holy Land, the pope watered and blessed a young olive tree. Representatives of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force on the Golan also sought a blessing from the pope; soldiers who monitor neither peace nor war on this path of the divided Golan.

(on camera): This Syrian stage of the pope's journey is drawing to a close: a journey in which he's clearly using his spiritual role to try and help ease growing tensions and stop spiraling bloodshed in the Middle East.

Brent Sadler, CNN, Damascus.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And for more now on the pope's Middle East visit, we're joined by Robert Moynihan; he's editor-in-chief of "Inside the Vatican."

Robert, good to see you.

ROBERT MOYNIHAN, EDITOR, "INSIDE THE VATICAN": Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Brent Sadler just talked about the spiritual role here that the pope is trying to play. Let's sort of -- let's get into that a little deeper here and talk about sort of the pope's train of thought from a biblical standpoint, and why he is retracing the steps of the Apostle Paul, because a lot happened in Damascus with Paul and it was sort of mystical type of experience.

How is this -- how is he trying to parlay this train of thought into peace in the Middle East?

MOYNIHAN: Yes. The pope is continuing the journeys of St. Paul. Last year, the church celebrated the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus. They called it a Great Jubilee, and they invited people to make pilgrimages, both physically and spiritually, to try to renew their faith.

And St. Paul had made several journeys in his early career as a learned Jewish scholar who converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus when he had a mystical vision, was struck from his horse, was blinded, went to Damascus, his sight restored, he became a Christian.

So, the pope wanted in this year to finish that pilgrimage of last year and call on people for new sight, and call on the Muslims, on the Jews and on Christians, both Eastern and Western, to be renewed and to strive for peace. That's his message.

PHILLIPS: Let's look at the metaphor here for a moment. He's on the road to Damascus. Do you think he, too, can find this conversion, this turn and this change?

MOYNIHAN: Well, he's -- he seems to be finding new youth. That's an old man, no doubt about it. He's 80 years old, but he's increasing his pace, and it looks to me as if he's aiming at something before he comes to the end of his earthly life, and he's looking at Middle Eastern peace. He wants to be a player in the Middle East. He's looking at world peace. He sees some grave dangers there. And so, he's making this journey for political reasons as well as spiritual and personal reasons.

PHILLIPS: Yes, he definitely stepping into some politically sensitive areas. Maybe we should talk about that. He's not -- you mentioned political goals, but this is a man of real religious conviction, and do you think people are really paying attention to that and looking at him differently, than say, they would negotiators at a table about a peace process?

MOYNIHAN: Well, this peace process has gone so long and the rifts are so deep, it may require something unusual like a gesture of an old Roman pope to get people thinking that they should take a different direction. He took off his shoes. He went into the mosque for the first time ever in history. He's trying to say something different has to come or else you're going to end up with children being shot and people being bombed then worse things in the future.

He's trying to say let's come together, do, in a sense, what I'm doing and let's try to forge some kind of a peace. I could say the word "pontiff," which is his title, the pontiff of Rome, comes from the word pons, or bridge...

PHILLIPS: Bridge builder.

MOYNIHAN: ... in Latin, and that's really what he's doing. As a Catholic, he has specific teachings that he would present to Catholics and to Christians, but as a pontiff; in a sense, a man who faced Soviet Union, a man who's faced now various types of globalization, which he is opposed to, he's also trying to build bridges in a secular sense, in a political sense. He doesn't see it as a field which is not appropriate for him.

PHILLIPS: Robert Moynihan, editor of "Inside the Vatican," thanks for the little different bit of an insight there. We appreciate it.

MOYNIHAN: Thank you.

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