Pope Francis: The People’s Pope
Father Collins: Yes, I think so. Last year, he invited the President of Israel and the President of the Palestinian Authority to come to the Vatican. It was following a trip that he’d made. And he said to them, is there no way we can move forward, and the two of them did try and agree. They didn’t get very far, to be honest with you, because it seems at the moment to be an intractable problem.
However, the Holy See from the time of Pope John Paul II has been very much on the side of the Palestinian Authority because they see this as a minority people who are not getting all the chances that the majority in Israel is getting. But, I have to say that I’m not expert in the area, so I’d be very foolish trying to impose my view onto what I think Pope Francis is doing. But, certainly, Pope Francis is following John Paul’s idea that the Palestinians are the little brother. They may be rebellious, they may be violent, etc., but they’re still ones who have less whereas the residents of Israel have a bit more.
And I think what they’ve been trying to do, say, look, both of you be generous, try and dialogue and talk and stop having these extreme views, because ultimately, we’re not going to make any progress on this dialogue.
Christopher Buck: I see Pope Francis taking the position of, this is our common ground and looking outward to our differences to see how to resolve them as opposed to a more common method of standing in our differences and trying to figure out what the common ground is.
Father Collins: Yeah, it seems to be like that. And in actual fact, he was very friendly with an Argentinean rabbi in Buenos Aires. And the two of them hosted a radio program every week, and in fact, they–his name was Rabbi Shorka. And they wrote a book together. In fact, they wrote two books together.
