Pope Francis has announced a short official visit to Israel in May 2014!
In what will be his first visit to Israel, Pope Francis will be following his predecessor’s footsteps, Pope Benedict, who visited Israel back in 2009.
As experienced on that 2009 visit, there are likely to be huge crowds of Christian pilgrims in attendance, even though Pope Francis is officially visiting for a quickie only – May 24-26.
Pope Francis is expected to visit Bethlehem and Yad Vashem, with another couple of stopovers also likely. We can point the Pope in the direction of the must-see Christian sites in Israel, just in case he’s not sure…
Francis recently wrote that the Catholic Church holds “the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked.”