.- During a private audience with Israel’s Chancellor Silvan Shalom, Pope John Paul II made a plea in favor of a solution for the critical situation in the Holy Land.
Joaquin Navarro-Valls, director of the Holy See Press Office, revealed in a statement that the Pope received Shalom, minister of Foreign Affairs for the State of Israel, who afterward met with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State, and Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, secretary of the Section for Relations with States.
“In the course of their conversations,” said Navarro Valls, “the parties expressed their point of view on the path to follow in order to obtain peace in the Holy Land,” in particular, “the need to find a solution to the current situation was insisted upon, as well as the need for concrete acts of reconciliation on both sides.”
“During the encounter, bilateral issues that concern the life of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land were examined in light of the commitments undertaken with the Fundamental Agreement of 1993,” the Vatican spokesman concluded.
