Pope Lays Wreath at Tomb of Zionism's Founder

JERUSALEM - Making history for the second day running, Pope Francis laid a wreath Monday on the grave of the founder of Zionism, becoming the first pope to do so, a gesture of support to Israel after several symbolic signals the day before that lent a spiritual lift to Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty.

The visit was part of a marathon morning tour of Jerusalem in which Francis took off his shoes to enter the Dome of the Rock and later stood for several minutes with his right palm on the ancient stones of the Western Wall before placing a note between them. At the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, he kissed the hands of six Holocaust survivors as he heard their specific stories, and, echoing a Jewish mantra, said: 'Never again, Lord, never again!'

'A great evil has befallen us, such as never happened under the heavens,' Francis said, quoting the Bible in remarks part prayer and part poetry. 'Grant us the grace to be ashamed of what we men have done.'

At the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Francis added to his already packed itinerary a quick visit to a memorial to Israeli victims of terror attacks, perhaps in an effort to counterbalance the powerful lift he provided to Palestinians with an unscheduled stop Sunday at the concrete barrier dividing Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

The pope's itinerary included meetings with Mr. Netanyahu and with President Shimon Peres of Israel, who has accepted his invitation for a peace-prayer summit with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in the Vatican next month.

Asked why Francis had invited Mr. Peres, whose position is largely ceremonial, rather than Mr. Netanyahu, who is Mr. Abbas's counterpart in peace talks, the Vatican spokesman said the pope and the Israeli president had developed a warm relationship of 'great esteem' and Mr. Peres had urged him with 'great insistence' to visit the Holy Land before his term expires in July.

'The pope has with President Peres a good feeling, this is clear,' the spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reports at a news conference late Sunday. 'This is not an exclusion of the other, but there are good premises to pray together with President Peres and Mahmoud Abbas.'

The crammed schedule - nine stops in five hours - started the final leg of the 77-year-old pontiff's three-day sojourn through the Holy Land, which the Vatican had described as a 'purely religious' pilgrimage but in which he waded pointedly into the fraught politics of the region.

On Sunday, Francis became the first pope to travel directly into Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory and to call it the 'State of Palestine,' affirming the 2012 United Nations resolution upgrading its status. An unscheduled stop provided the defining image of the day, when the pope touched his forehead to the graffiti-scarred concrete barrier dividing Bethlehem from Jerusalem. Israel calls the barrier essential for its security, while Palestinians loathe it as a symbol of the way the occupation restricts their daily lives.

The itinerary Monday offered something of a counterpoint, particularly the visit to the grave of Theodor Herzl, whose appeal to Pope Pius X when they met 110 years ago for help in establishing a Jewish state was harshly rejected, with Pius suggesting that Jews convert to Christianity. Flanked by Mr. Peres and Mr. Netanyahu, Francis placed a large ring of yellow and white flowers - Vatican colors - atop the large square tomb, then added a stone, following a Jewish custom, and bowed his head for several minutes.

Stops at Herzl's grave have recently been added to the routine protocol for visiting heads of state, but Mr. Netanyahu nonetheless embraced Francis' visit as a significant step, telling the pope at Sunday's welcome ceremony in Tel Aviv, 'We admired and appreciate your decision' to do so.

In previous papal pilgrimages, the Israel portion of the itinerary proved fraught.

In 1964, Paul VI outraged Israelis by arriving from Jordan through Megiddo, in the north, rather than Jerusalem. 'He spent 11 hours in the country and never mentioned the word 'Israel,'' said Amnon Ramon, a professor of comparative religions at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 'It left a sour feeling.'

John Paul II's visit in 2000 'was a huge revolution,' Professor Ramon said, particularly his placement of a note committing 'to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant' between the stones of the Western Wall.

But Pope Benedict, a German who had unwittingly been a member of Hitler Youth, angered Israelis in 2009 by failing to apologize in a speech at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. Father Lombardi pointed out that, unlike Benedict, Francis was careful to say specifically that six million Jews had been killed and to use the Hebrew word for the Holocaust, 'Shoah.'

Francis also joined the Israeli leaders in condemning Saturday's slaying of at least three people outside the Jewish museum in Brussels, which he called a 'criminal act of anti-Semitic hatred.'

Pope Francis, who pleased Jews worldwide by promising to open the church's archives from the Holocaust era, traveled with a rabbi from his native Buenos Aires with whom he has co-authored a book and recorded hours of televised conversation (he also brought an Islamic scholar from Argentina).

On Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu described Francis' 'special bond with the Jewish nation' and called the visit 'a very important chapter in the relationship between Jews and Christians' that dates back two millenniums.