- Deal Hudson (InsideCatholic.com) wants the Pope to "challenge Israel to reject its own extremism, specifically, the confiscation of Palestinian land and the building of settlements" (InsideCatholic.com May 7, 2009)
- Jerusalem Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan says "We want His Holiness to have a voice [that] rejects occupation, violence, [Israeli] settlements and all other violation of human rights" (Ekklesia May 7, 2009)
- Avner Shalev, Yad Vashem's chairman of the directorate, expects "that Pope Benedict XVI's speech at Yad Vashem will include a reference to the memory of the Holocaust in the present as well as in the future" (Haaretz May 7, 2009)
- Carol Ritter, a Catholic nun, thinks the Pope "should go as a penitent pilgrim. He should ask for forgiveness, he should go to learn and listen and not necessarily to pontificate, he should go with humility" (The Guardian)
- governor Adnan Husseini plans to lobby the Pope on Palestinian building permits, stating "There is a battle on every piece of land in Jerusalem" (Reuters)
- Sheik Ramadan al Sheik, the imam at the Kalouhy Mosque in Amman, Jordan, wants the Pope to speak his conscience, and condemn the "killing of innocents in Gaza" (Los Angeles Times)
- John Allen, Jr. wants the Pope to emphasize a "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, insist that Palestinians reject extremism, express solidarity with Christians in the Holy Land, and bring Iran on board in all regional discussions. (New York Times)
Some of the suggestions are admittedly more sensible othan others (we'll leave that to the debate of our readers). On the other hand, Jacques Monet, a Jesuit priest in Toronto, has a novel suggestion (National Post):
"We should be trying to understand what he's doing there. It is a pilgrimage. A pope should go to the Holy Land because it is the Holy Land. This should become a normal thing for popes to do. If Pope Benedict wasn't going it would be a much larger statement."
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