Abbas and Peres "have the courage to move forward", Francis told reporters yesterday on his return flight from a three-day trip to the Middle East that was packed with powerful symbolism but with politics never far behind.
"The meeting in the Vatican is to pray together, it's not a mediation," the Argentinian pope stressed of the "prayer summit" scheduled for June 6, after both Peres and Abbas accepted his surprise invitation issued on Sunday.
He had stated the three-day trip would be "purely religious" but waded into sensitive issues, praying at the controversial West Bank separation barrier in another unscripted move which the Palestinians saw as a silent condemnation of the Israeli government's policies.
Francis, 77, yesterday capped his diplomatic high-wire act with a mass at a contested Jerusalem site where he made an impassioned call for an end to religious intolerance, saying believers must have free access to sites they consider sacred within the Holy City.
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Vatican efforts to negotiate greater rights for Christians to access the Upper Room have sparked angry and sometimes violent opposition from nationalist and Orthodox Jews, who revere part of the building as the tomb of King David.
Police were called to the Church of the Dormition, about 30 metres from the Upper Room in the Mount Zion compound, to probe an arson attack carried out shortly after the pope celebrated his mass.