Dailies and periodicals” “

“A new beginning for peace in the Middle East”. That’s how the Herald Tribune (6/5) defines the “road map”, the peace plan for the Palestinians and the Israelis sponsored by the USA, Russia, the European Union and the UNO. The road map was announced by the White House in recent days and backed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell in his most recent diplomatic shuttle through the Middle East. “The plan – explains the American daily – is fair to both sides and it is clear. To begin with, the Palestinian Authority must stop the violence against Israel by consolidating its security services and disarming the rebels. Simultaneously, the Israelis must dismantle its settlements of the last two years and freeze any activity of occupation; they must stop the attacks on Palestinian properties and civilians and re-establish cooperation”. The alternative to the road map, in the view of the Herald Tribune, is “more bloodshed. This gloomy scenario is the best reason for Israelis and for Palestinians to support the peace plan. A Jewish state can only be vital on the part of the territory controlled by Israel, and a Palestinian state can only be born from a compromise”. Peace in the Middle East “depends on Gaza“, headlines Le Monde of 7/5. Reporting on the eve of Powell’s arrival, the French daily says that “many details [of the road map] still remain to be defined, especially as regards the respective roles of the two major supporters of this new process – the USA and the European Union – but eyes are focused on Gaza, one of the few territories where it is still possible to come across armed Palestinians in uniform, a vestige of the autonomy inherited from the Oslo accords”. “Is the threat of a new ecumenical ice age real?!” The question is posed on page ten of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (7/5) by theologian Michael Welker, in the light of the recent papal encyclical on the Eucharist, after reviewing the various joint declarations of the Churches on ecumenism since the 1970s. Welker draws attention to the emphasis placed “by the Pope on the community character of the sacrament, which underlines the concept of an ecclesiology of communion as the central and fundamental idea of the documents of Vatican Council II”, a centrality, however, that is in his view “subordinated to the ban on Catholics receiving the Eucharist in communities in which the sacrament of holy orders is not respected”. The one chance of avoiding opposition is, in Welker’s view, “the resumption of an ecumenical dialogue in which the Catholic centrality of the apostolic succession on the one hand and its biblical foundation on the other are both respected”. The same Frankfurt daily covers the Pope’s visit to Spain in its edition on Monday 5 May: a visit, explains the unsigned editorial, in which the Pope forcefully expressed “a new invitation to peace and concord, the condemnation of nationalism, and the recall of the Christian roots of the continent”. How can the response of the Spanish people be evaluated? In the view of the FAZ “it seems almost as if through this visit Spain wanted to shake off the current condition of crisis of its church” which is reflected, it says, in the weakened influence of Christian values at the political and social level. Just for this reason “the Pontiff asked local Catholics to recall their own roots with pride and reinforce the Catholic and Christian identity on which the nation is founded”. “He’s returned to Spain, the most visible Pope in the history of Catholicism, with 99 journeys throughout the world and all the means of communication devoted to his communicative capacity”. So begins the editorial in the Spanish daily El Paìs of 4/5, which dedicated ample coverage to the Pope’s recent visit to Spain. “John Paul II’s journey to our country – says the editorial – is the fifth of his pontificate and coincides with a difficult moment for humanity, which is suffering from scandalous wars and famines, violations of the most elementary human rights and chaos and corruption in institutions that seemed irremovable”. It’s also a journey that coincides “with the end of hostilities” in Iraq, as well as being a “state visit to one of the countries that most distinguished itself in promoting the war”. However, continues the paper, “no one can claim that John Paul II failed to do what was in his tired hands to propose rationality, legality and mercy to international politics”. “For those who have responsibility of government and who boast of following his teachings – concludes the editorial -, the voice of John Paul II ought to be a stimulus to a greater coherence between some of the convictions proclaimed and their crude repudiation in practice”.———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1203 N.ro relativo : 33 Data pubblicazione : 10/05/2003