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Middle East
Pope John Paul II took an unprecedented seven-day tour of religious sites in Jordan, Israel and Palestine. The frail 80-year old leader of the world’s one billion Catholics is the first pope to visit the Holy Land. His trip included strong apologies for the sins committed by Christianity against the Jewish people and calls for peace between the Israeli and Palestinian nations.
A couple weeks before his visit the Pope released a broad 19,000 word apology entitled “Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past” which addressed mistreatment of Jews, women and native peoples. While some feel the apologies have not been specific enough, most observers see them as important steps towards invigorating the image of the Catholic Church heading into the next millennium.
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