While Israel has a right to protect its citizens, the security barrier separating Israel from the Palestinian territories and checkpoints along the barrier raise human rights concerns, said a U.S. cardinal. "The most tragic thing I have seen is the miles-long wall that separates Jerusalem from Bethlehem and separates families and keeps farmers from the land that has been in their families for generations. It is humiliating and distressing," Cardinal John P. Foley, grand master of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, told participants at the 11th international conference of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation Oct. 24.

They're older and wiser, and with a few hundred years of (cumulative) experience under their belts, they arrived for a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Tuesday in the hope that they might nudge along peace efforts. The "Elders," as they are called, are a group of prominent former heads of state, renowned activists, and global business leaders who are trying to use their clout and cachet to affect change. Included in the delegation here are former President Jimmy Carter, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Irish President Mary Robinson, and Britain's Richard Branson, founder of the multinational Virgin Group.

Religious leaders are warning President Obama that continuing strife between Palestinians and Israelis threatens to wipe out a Christian presence in the Holy Land. Fifty-six representatives of various Protestant and Catholic faiths -- including several Baptists -- wrote a letter June 4 applauding the president for making peace in the Holy Land a top priority, but warning that time is running out for a viable and peaceful two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While also concerned about Jews and Muslims, the leaders said they are particularly worried about the plight of the Palestinian Christian community.

Pope Benedict XVI said his visit to the Holy Land was a pilgrimage of faith and of peace, and an occasion to bear witness to the fact that even in desperate situations of tension believers trust in the power of God. "In that land blessed by God, it sometimes seems impossible to break the spiral of violence, but nothing is impossible for God and for those who trust in him," the pope said May 20 at his weekly general audience. "For this reason, faith in the one God -- just and merciful -- is the most precious resource" of the Christians, Muslims and Jews living in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, he said.

Pope Benedict XVI set out on a spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Land but quickly encountered an earthly reality: Politics are inescapable in the contested lands that gave birth to Judaism, Islam and Christianity. While the pontiff's speeches are laced with appeals for unity and hope, his divided audiences hear language that is too tepid for their taste -- or too strong, depending on the camp. He preaches peace in an embattled terrain and compassion to those who are in no mood to compromise. Israelis and Palestinians deserve "peace in a homeland of their own, within secure and internationally recognized borders," Benedict said on his arrival. He was simply reiterating Vatican support for a two-state solution that Israel and the Palestinians once embraced. Today, the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently no longer does, and the Palestinian leadership is divided.

After a rough forty-eight hours for Pope Benedict XVI in the Middle East, the pontiff attempted to get back on track today with his most explicitly political message. On his lone day in the Palestinian Territories, Benedict delivered the papal equivalent of Ronald Reagan's famous 1987 "tear down this wall!" speech in Berlin. Standing in a Palestinian refugee camp located in the shadow of Israel's towering security wall, Benedict forcefully criticized such barriers between peoples. "In a world where more and more borders are being opened up - to trade, to travel, to movement of peoples, to cultural exchanges - it is tragic to see walls still being erected," the pope said. Later, he said such walls "do not last forever" and "can be taken down" - a fairly clear hint that, in his mind, the wall should come down as quickly as possible.

Pope Benedict XVI is set to begin a weeklong visit to the Holy Land, a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Christ and a journey through a political and interreligious minefield. In many ways, the May 8-15 visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories is the most challenging of the pope's foreign visits to date, one that will test his skills of communication and bridge-building in a region of conflict and mistrust. After recent communications missteps at the Vatican, the pope can expect to find his every word and gesture under scrutiny by the world's media -- especially when it comes to relations among Christians, Muslims and Jews and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Although the world may measure the success of the visit in terms of international or interfaith diplomacy, Pope Benedict is going to the Holy Land first and foremost as a religious pilgrim.

For many people abroad, the photos of bleeding and dead children, of wounded Palestinians lying in crowded hospital wards and people sifting through the rubble of their homes said all that needed to be said about the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. The key word in discussions was "proportionality." Was Israel using disproportionate force to eliminate Hamas gunmen who had been lobbing missiles into southern Israel for eight years? Since 2001, some 1,000 Israelis have been injured in the attacks and almost 30 -- including several children -- have been killed. Father Jamal Khader, dean of the faculty of arts and chairman of the religious studies department at Bethlehem University, said while he was angry at what Hamas was doing it did not justify Israeli military actions in Gaza or the high number of civilian casualties.

Fr. Raymond Helmick is a copious correspondent. For the past three years, the Jesuit priest has written nearly 20 letters to Khalid Mishal, founder and political leader of the Palestinian movement Hamas, urging him to abandon militancy, unify with Fatah, Hamas' political rival, and organize the Palestinians in a disciplined campaign of nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. "Your military weapons are too puny to stand against Israeli weapons, but that mobilized power of a people denying, without violence, any cooperation with its occupiers is something Israel could not withstand," wrote Helmick in a Feb 2006 letter sent weeks after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections.

A multifaith group of religious leaders from Boston, including Jews, Muslims, and Christians, issued a joint statement yesterday calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. "We call upon Hamas immediately to end all rocket attacks on Israel, and upon Israel immediately to end its military campaign in Gaza," the statement said. The Jewish signatories included several rabbis as well as the former presidents of Hebrew College, the Jewish Community Relations Council, and the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, but were predominantly drawn from the liberal wing of the Jewish community and do not include the heads of the major umbrella Jewish community organizations, who have generally not been critical of Israel.