Trumpet the faith, pope tells converts

Jerusalem scene of ‘holy fire’ rite

Pope Francis presides over Easter vigil services late Saturday at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
Pope Francis presides over Easter vigil services late Saturday at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis baptized 10 people Saturday and urged them to take their faith “to the ends of the earth” as he presided over an Easter vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The vigil is among the Vatican’s most solemn services. Francis entered the darkened basilica with a lone candle, which he then shared with others to slowly illuminate the church. The symbolic service commemorates the darkness of the faithful over the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday and their joy and light at his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Francis urged the priests, bishops, cardinals and ordinary Catholics gathered for the late-night service to remember when they first found their faith. “Do I remember it? Have I forgotten it? Look for it. You’ll find it. The Lord is waiting.”

Trying to remember isn’t an act of nostalgia but rather a way to take the “fire” of faith “to all people, to the very ends of the earth,” he said.

After his homily, Francis baptized each of the 10, starting with Italian brothers Giorgio and Jacopo Capezzuoli, ages 8 and 10. “Do you want to be baptized?” he asked each one as he smiled.

He asked the same of the adult converts, who hailed from Vietnam, Belarus, Senegal, Lebanon, Italy and France.

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AP

A pilgrim holds candles Saturday in Jerusalem at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional burial site of Jesus, during the ceremony of the Holy Fire.

It was the second late night for Francis after the long Good Friday Way of the Cross procession at Rome’s Colosseum. Francis, 77, will get a few hours of rest before celebrating Easter Sunday Mass in the flower-strewn St. Peter’s Square.

He then has a week to prepare for the other major celebration of this year’s Easter season: the April 27 canonizations of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend.

In Jerusalem, the dark hall inside Christianity’s holiest shrine was illuminated with the flames from thousands of candles Saturday as worshippers participated in the holy fire ceremony, a momentous spiritual event in Orthodox Easter rites.

Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected at the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands in the Old City of Jerusalem. While the source of the holy fire is a closely guarded secret, believers say the flame appears spontaneously from his tomb on the day before Easter to show Jesus has not forgotten his followers.

The ritual dates back at least 1,200 years.

Thousands of Christians waited outside the church for it to open Saturday morning. Custody of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is shared by a number of denominations that jealously guard their responsibilities under a fragile network of agreements hammered out over the past millennium. In accordance with tradition, the church’s doors were unlocked by a member of a Muslim family, who for centuries has been the keeper of the ancient key that is passed on within the family from generation to generation.

Once inside, clergymen from the various Orthodox denominations in robes and hoods jostled for space with local worshippers and pilgrims from around the world.

Top Orthodox clergymen descended into the small chamber marking the site of Jesus’ tomb as worshippers eagerly waited in the dim church clutching bundles of unlit candles and torches.

After a while, candles emerged lit with the “holy fire” - said to have been lit by a miracle as a message to the faithful from heaven.

Bells rang as worshippers rushed to use the flames to ignite their own candles.

In mere seconds, the bursts of light spread throughout the cavernous church as flames jumped from one candle to another.

Clouds of smoke wafted through the crammed hall as flashes from cameras and mobile phones documented what is for many, the spiritual event of a lifetime.

Some held light from the holy fire to their faces to bask in the glow while others dripped wax on their bodies. Israeli police spokesman Luba Samri said tens of thousands of worshippers participated in the ceremony.

Many couldn’t fit inside the church, and the narrow winding streets of the Old City were lined with pilgrims.

The holy fire was passed among worshippers outside the church and then taken to the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, where tradition holds Jesus was born, and from there to other Christian communities in Israel and the West Bank.

Later it is taken aboard special flights to Athens and other cities, linking many of the 200 million Orthodox worldwide.

As thousands flooded Jerusalem’s Old City for the annual lighting of the holy fire, there were reports that Israeli police officers created barriers for some Palestinian Christians who were seeking to attend together with a group of high-ranking diplomats.

Robert Serry, the United Nations’ special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said he and several other senior diplomats had joined with Palestinian Christians in a special procession to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is built on the hill where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried before rising from the dead.

But despite earlier assurances of unhindered access to the church for the Saturday of Light ceremonies, Serry said in a statement, Israeli police refused to allow the group entry, saying they had orders to that effect.

“A precarious standoff ensued ending in an angry crowd pushing their way through,” Serry said.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that if such an incident did occur, police would look into it. “During the day, many delegations were escorted into the Old City, and the police coordinated and prepared ahead of time with no incidents occurring,” he said.

“Considering the thousands of people that visited today, the event passed quietly and respectfully,” he added.

The special coordinator expressed dismay at the incident and called on “all parties to respect the right of religious freedom, granting access to holy sites for worshipers of all faiths and refraining from provocations not least during religious holidays.”

Restrictions of the kind Serry described are not unusual this time of year. For the past eight or nine years, one of the annual rites of spring for Palestinian Christians is to complain about their access to the holy places during Easter Week - and for Israeli officials to deny they are doing anything wrong.

This year, it seems, is no different. But the Palestinian cause is gathering more support, and the issue is drawing more attention in anticipation of the pope’s visit in May.

This month, the Israeli High Court of Justice agreed that Palestinians’ rights were being violated by police checkpoints and other restrictions that annually create obstacles to worship. According to the newspaper Haaretz, an internal European Union report noted that the situation last year was especially disturbing.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and head of the Catholic Church in Israel, Cyprus, Jordan and the Palestinian territories, Fouad Twal, said that the number of Palestinians attending Palm Sunday processionals earlier this week was “very low,” and he blamed Israelis for the sparse turnout.

“I saw very few of our local people” coming into the Old City, Twal said.

About 50,000 Catholic and Orthodox Christians live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and many need a permit to travel to Jerusalem in the days before Easter.

“I spoke with authorities,” Twal said. “Maybe there were less permits, maybe they came late, or they gave one to the father but not to the mother.”

Restricting Palestinians’ access to Jerusalem during Holy Week, Twal said, is “not fair, not just, not religious.”

Thousands of Israeli police and soldiers were deployed this week in and around Jerusalem’s Old City, central to the world’s three monotheistic religions, as huge crowds came to pray and celebrate Passover and Easter.

“There is no dignity in this,” said Firas Aridah, a parish priest at St. Joseph’s Church outside the West Bank city of Ramallah. “I need a permit to enter into Israel, why? … This is my mother church, my state?

“I do not believe this is security,” Aridah added. “The Israelis do not want to show how many Christians are living here and that they are powerful in the Old City.”

Maj. Guy Inbar, spokesman for the Israeli military-run authority that oversees the West Bank, said it was not true that fewer permits had been given out this year to Palestinian Christians wanting to visit Jerusalem.

“So far this week, we have issued more than 17,000 permits. That is basically more or less the number of people who applied for them,” Inbar said. “Only a handful of people were denied permits, and those were due to security concerns.”

Hind Khoury, a former minister of Jerusalem affairs for the Palestinian Authority, said she has seen priests roughed up and insulted by Israeli security personnel and that security forces enter the Holy Sepulcher Church.

“People are not coming to Jerusalem anymore” from the West Bank, Khoury said. “Who wants confrontations and tear gas? Easter is supposed to be a time of joy.”

In Washington, President Barack Obama encouraged Americans to draw strength and inspiration from the Easter and Passover holidays.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said Holy Week and Easter are times for reflection and renewal.

He said the common thread of humanity is a shared commitment to loving our neighbors as ourselves. He said there’s no better time for people to rededicate themselves to that mission.

Obama also said the Easter story is one of hope and faith that better days are yet to come.

In the Republican address, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said Republicans want to enable Americans. He said Republicans believe government should be a platform for opportunity and freedom, while Democrats want to mandate what Americans must do.

Information for this article was contributed by Rush Eglash and William Booth of The Washington Post and by Nicole Winfi eld, Ian Deitch and staff members of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/20/2014

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