“ My home for Peace. Pope Francis [2], in the Holy Land, opens up San Peter’s doors and his own home to the revolution of Peace. It’s a long time coming peace, difficult to build, many times announced, and as many times betrayed.

 

Israel and Palestine: ancient populations, strengthened by their history and truth, separated by violence and prejudice, with a common fate and a forced path ahead: dialogue.

 

Twenty-one years after the handshake between Rabin [3] and Arafat [4] in the gardens of the ‘White House’, ‘The house of Peter’ could become the place for a new and definitive alliance to blossom.

“We too - a barefoot Francis said on the esplanade of the Temple Mount- wish to witness to God's working in the world, and so, precisely in this meeting, we hear deep within us his summons to work for peace and justice, to implore these gifts in prayer and to learn from on high mercy, magnanimity and compassion"

Compassion is the key to understand his papacy and at the same time the motivating force of this pilgrimage in the land of the great monotheist religions.

 

There is a close connection between compassion and peace, feeling the pain of the other as a way to restart dialogues once interrupted. This historic trip was firmly wanted to celebrate the fifty years since Paul VI travelled to Jerusalem, the first pope to do so after San Peter.

 

Pope Francis, coming from the edge of the world, had many times before stated that the paralysis of the consciences is contagious and spreads to the point that it hinders the freedom of entire populations. But also compassion has the potential to be contagious and can initiate the revolution of peace, if you have the courage to invoke it, always and everywhere.

Hence his appeal "Dear brothers, dear friends, from this holy place I make a heartfelt plea to all people and to all communities who look to Abraham: may we respect and love one another as brothers and sisters!

 

May we learn to understand the sufferings of others! May no one abuse the name of God through violence! May we work together for justice and peace!”

 

We need to work hand in hand for peace, a peace that won’t be achieved until the truth will have completed its path to freedom.

 

Together with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Jerusalem, Francis invoked peace for those men and women who, although of different faiths, have the right to believe in their God without having to fear discrimination or persecution. The wish for the two States is for their own dreams to become reality. For the Palestinians he urged a just peace, the right to have a sovereign state, to live with dignity and travel freely. For the people of Israel, he asked for the right to peace within their walls, the safety of its territories, but also peace in a wider sense, beyond its borders and beyond time: the supreme respect they are owed for their history … A history that is also ours but is too often forgotten, offended, desecrated, wiped out by fierce hate and merciless violence.


“God – Francis prayed at of Yad Vashem’s Holocaust Memorial - grant us the grace to be ashamed of what we men have done,to be ashamed of this massive idolatry, of having despised and destroyed our own flesh which you formed from the earth, to which you gave life with your own breath of life. Never again, Lord, never again!”

The revolution of Peace is possible if we offer it a home. This is why Francis has opened his doors: “ My home for Peace”.