DAYAN AT THE VATICAN

...No dramatic about-face, therefore...

...The mutual suspicion and antagonism that have so often marked Vatican-Israel relations Were gone and in their place was a spirit of cooperation and compromise...

...Yet something had changed since the polemic visit of Golda Meir to the Vatican in 1973...

...Can Christian love become the impetus for a sharing, cooperating world...

...the door is open to all...

...Father Greeley should have asked whether Christian theology and liturgy will be able to make Christians aware of the awesome mystery and paradox of this gift and give us the sense of direction, purpose, and humility to discern and follow goodness without creating a crutch, a fantasy, escapism, that allows us to avoid responsibility for good and evil...

...A state senator said to me several months ago with regard to capital punishment, "We do not know if it is a deterrent or not, but we have to do something...

...Not a victory for Israel nor a victory for the Vati...

...To the Editors: The article by Sister Lois Spear in the November 25 issue underscores one of the frequently neglected arguments against the death penalty, namely, that it most probably induces some persons to murder...

...Also in November the Pope, speaking from the window of his studio, called the trip of Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat to Jerusalem "a sign of peace...

...When the state of Israel was created in 1948, it was not recognized by the Vatican and in December of that year the Vatican Ppported a United Nations resolution which stipulated that Jerusalem and the surrounding area should constitute a "corpus separatum...

...The archbishop arrived in Rome in November...

...When Pppe Paul VI ascended the papal throne after the death of John XXIII in 1963, he immediately began to speak of a trip to the Holy Land, a trip which he undertook in 1964...

...After the 1967 six-day war when the Israelis militarily occupied the Arab part of the Holy City, he proposed that Jerusalem be declared an "open city...

...in an obvious allusion to the Palestinian people, the Pope spoke of the need to "put an end to the sufferngs of all the peoples of the Middle East, respecting the rights of all and establishing a foundation for a Iruitful co-existence among them...

...No concessions on either side, but for the first time a recognition by the two 133 parties that if there was to be a lasting peace it must be forged together...

...margo Hammond (Margo Hammond, a frequent contributor, is an American journalist based in Rome...

...By exercising his freedom to choose, man becomes responsible for good and evil and can never be free of this responsibility to live the childlike existence of Eden...

...The first Pope to visit Jerusalem, Paul has continually returned to the problem of control over the Holy Places and the city itself...

...An observer from the Holy See was sent to the Conference of Ismalia in December...

...Signs of a detente between the Vatican and Israel came, however, at the end of last year...

...In 1971 he spoke of the need for a particular status for Jerusalem and the Vatican's official organ, L'Osservatore Romano, criticized the urbanistic plans which, violating the UN resolution, were tending to establish "with the logic of a fait accompli" the sovereignty of Israel over all of Jerusalem...

...On Christmas day the Pope underlined the "importance which will perhaps be determinant" of the conference between Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin for the return of peace and justice to "their land which spiritually is also ours...

...No one is invited to the Vatican, the note corrected...

...Dayan, on the other hand, spoke only of the need to assure free access to the "Holy Places" without mentioning the taboo subject of Jerusalem itself—"that eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state...

...The people are demanding it...

...In the face of incidents like this, it is hard to see how proponents of the death penalty can continue to believe that it is effective as a deterrent...

...These appeals had always fallen on deaf ears...

...These manifestations of moral support by the Vatican for the on-going peace initiatives provided the background for Dayan's visif...

...The importance of these remarks did not escape the Israeli Foreign Minister: he thanked the Pope for his promise to aid "all the parties in cause...

...marilyn kramer ______Death on Demand_______ Raleigh, N.C...

...Can Christianity find a broader criterion for morality that will bring goodness closer to the loving that frees others from selfconcern to love in their turn, as Jesus did...

...Dayan did not, is the Pope might have hoped, change his stance on either of the issues that have long divided the two tates: the Palestinian question or the status of Jerulalem and the Holy Places...

...The endless, specious arguments between pro- and anti-abortionists serve, merely to solidify these positions, while obscuring the one approach on which the majority could agree—cooperative efforts to reduce the need for aibortions...

...We do not know how many murders are motivated by a desire to destroy themselves, but there have been studies which document increases in homicide rates before and after highly publicized executions...

...But, we cannot discharge this responsibility without the knowledge of good and evil, and the traditionalists' claim to this knowledge is being seriously challenged by those who clearly see the evil in the unloving consequences of what the traditionalists call good...

...Cooperative efforts on hunger and poverty are encouraging, but certainly Christianity is failing to meet this challenge in the abortion issue...

...The Pope did not, as Dayan may lave wished, announce the establishment of diplomatic ies between the Vatican and Israel...

...Recalling the Vatcan's proposal to solve the problem of Jerusalem— 'that unique and sacred city that is the spiritual center for the three great monotheistic religions of the world"—the Catholic leader insisted once again on the creation of a "special status" for the city which is internationally guaranteed and which renders justice to the pluralistic character of the Holy City...

...The two men, in fact, merely reiterated their wellknown positions which in the past have created so nuch friction between the Catholic and Jewish states...

...Shortly after the publication of her article, Daniel Webster, one of the inmates of North Carolina's death row, took his own life with a razor blade, dramatically illustrating his own suicidal drive [News & Views, Dec...

...134 lost forever the fairy tale land of Eden...

...COLLINS KILBURN Director of Social Ministries North Carolina Council of Churches 159...

...During his meeting with the Israeli leader, Pope Paul emphasized the need for "all the interested parties to participate in the negotiations" and reconfirmed the Vatican's willingness to contribute to "the construction of peace...

...Emerging from her colloquy with the Pope, which had obviously not been a smooth one, a perturbed Golda Meir told the Vatican journalists that the Pope had invited her to come to Rome, adding that the cross she saw in the Pope's study had reminded her of the Nazi swastika...

...Embarrassed Vatican officials quickly issued a communique denying that an invitation had been extended to the Israeli prime minister...

...Pope Paul in a letter to the Israeli President, which the Israelis interpreted as a de facto recognition of its existence, asked for the liberation of Archbishop Hilarion Capucci, the MeJkite rite Catholic patriarchal vicar for Jerusalem, who was accused of aiding Palestinian guerrilla fighters and was serving a jail sentence...

...can, Dayan's visit to Rome was perhaps a small victor, for the cause of peace...

...Thus, in our outrage at violence, we collaborate with it and encourage it...

...The all-time low ebb of Vatican-Israel relations came, however, during the visit of the then Prime Minister Golda Meir to the Vatican in 1973...

...The relationship between the state of Israel and the Holy See has never been a very happy one: the most thorny issue has been above all the problem of Jerusalem and the Holy Places...

...I expect that this kind of desperation and frustration lies at the base of much popular and legislative support of executions...

...Or will Christianity remain a haven for those who want the comfort of a commitment to the loving Jesus without the discomfort of a commitment to help and share with their fellowman, a platitude to justify selfinterest, with love distorted into the self-righteous duty to save the world for our own personal salvation, becoming a force for evil rather than good...

...Between May 1948 and.November 1949, Pope Pius XII wrote three encyclicalas calling for the internationalization of the Holy Places Tk . • holy- me resolution was never carried out and the of the Places-and-Jerusalem-remained in the hands of the Isaraelis and the Jordanians...