I havent been able to get to it since Friday.

http://vialls.homestead.com/portarthur.html

sangraal

: Author: Joe Vialls

: In a whistle stop tour the mainstream media has tried to paint
: as the aimless
: ramblings of an old man, Pope John Paul has just done a very
: good impression of
: uniting massed Christian and Islamic forces against Judaism.
: Yes, that's right, the

: Crusades are on again, but this time the targets are Jews
: rather than Muslims!

: Before starting his controversial visit to Syria, the Pope
: dropped in on the
: Greek Orthodox church in Athens to apolgise for the sacking of
: Constantinople
: back in the 10th Century. At a single stroke (so to speak),
: this made reconciliation
: possible between the two second-largest religious groupings on
: the face of the
: earth. Not "kiss and make up" time of course, but
: sufficient to open direct lines of
: communication between the two command headquarters in the
: future.

: This was no idle move. Though the Archbishop in Athens is
: regarded as the
: unofficial head of the Orthodox Christian Church, the
: principle firepower of this
: religious group lies far to the north in Russia. Through an
: indirect and obscure
: process hardly befitting a "tired old man", as the
: mainstream media described
: him last week, the Pope was busily forming a paramilitary
: alliance between
: Europe and Russia, to the detriment of America and Israel.

: Mission complete the Vatican Caravan moved on to Damascus,
: where the
: young Syrian President made a stirring welcoming speech in
: which he referred to
: the Jews as "Neo Colonists who would kill anyone in their
: path to achieve their
: aims." The Pope nodded sagely and made no effort to
: correct this seeming gaff
: by his host, choosing only to warn Israel that it must obey
: United Nations
: resolutions which state that Jewish settlements are illegal in
: international law.

: Then like the humblest of worshippers, the Pope removed his
: shoes to enter
: the Great Omayyad Mosque, and take a significant step towards
: healing centuries
: of conflict between Islam and Christianity. The Pope, the
: first leader of the Roman
: Catholic Church to enter a mosque, said that from now on
: Muslims and Christians
: should be seen as in "respectful dialogue, nevermore as
: communities in conflict".
: He added: "For all the times that Muslims and Christians
: have offended one
: another, we need to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and
: offer each other
: forgiveness."

: Many Muslims - some suspicious that the leader of the faith
: that drove the
: Crusaders to the Holy Land might try to reassert a Christian
: claim to the mosque -
: had hoped for an apology from the Pope for the sins of 1,000
: years ago. But he
: made no apology, leaving the issue to God and individual
: consciences.

: The 80-year-old Pope had travelled to the mosque in his glass
: Popemobile
: through the ancient covered bazaar in the Old City - not far
: from the Street called
: Straight, where St Paul sought refuge after his conversion to
: Christianity. He was
: greeted at the door by the Mufti, Sheikh Ahmed Kuftaro, and -
: after swapping his
: shoes for white sandals - was offered the traditional welcome
: of two tiny cups of
: coffee. The Mufti told Pope John Paul that it was a
: "great day for Muslims around
: the world".

: Together they walked leaning on sticks - the sheikh supported
: by his son and
: the Pope by his cardinals - to visit the domed shrine which is
: believed to hold the
: head of St John the Baptist, who is revered by Muslims as the
: Prophet Yahya.
: The Pope stood in silent prayer at the shrine. A Syrian
: commentator said: "The
: Pope is silent. But his silence is more powerful than any
: words."

: The Omayyad Mosque, a place of worship for at least 3,000
: years, was
: perhaps the only place in the world where such a gesture could
: have taken place.
: Once a temple to an ancient fertility goddess, it became a
: temple to Jupiter in
: Roman times and then the Christian basilica of St John.

: After the Muslim conquest, is was for a time shared between
: Islam and
: Christianity - "Muslims turning to the right to the
: mosque and Christians turning to
: the left to a church", according to the Pope's guide. In
: the eighth century it became
: exclusively a mosque.

: There had been plans for joint prayers, but in the end the
: Pope and the Mufti sat
: in the spacious courtyard and listened to an Islamic
: "invocation" of God chanted
: by a Muslim cleric. The hosts recalled that they were in
: Damascus, the capital of
: "steadfastness" and "Arabism" and the
: bastion against Israel. Three Syrian
: speakers took the opportunity to denounce Zionism for creating
: all the problems of
: the Middle East.

: The Syrian view, stated bluntly the day before by President
: Bashar Assad, is
: that if Christians and Muslims are to unite, it must be in the
: struggle against Israeli
: "oppression". It was a stark reminder that even the
: most spiritual moments cannot
: be separated from politics. But no one could fail to see that
: a watershed had been
: passed in relations between church and mosque.

: From Damascus the Pope then visited an Orthodox Church on the
: Golan
: Heights, an everlasting symbol of savage Jewish behaviour in
: the Middle East.
: Though the church was not damaged in fighting during the 1967
: war, the Jews
: thoroughly desecrated this Orthodox Christian shrine before
: returning it to the
: Syrians in 1974.

: To say that this trip was symbolic would be the understatement
: of the decade,
: but the Pope wasn't quite finished yet. After waving goodbye
: to his host and
: boarding an Alitalia jet at Damascus, he continued on to Malta
: for a flying visit to
: Combined Force Headquarters...............

: http://vialls.homestead.com/pope1.html

: Visit combined force HQ here:
: http://vialls.homestead.com/order1.html

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