"Peace is possible. Peace is urgent."

The Holy Father reminds us in his homily at the closing of the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops that “we must never resign ourselves to the absence of peace.”

"Conflicts, wars, violence and terrorism have gone on for too long in the Middle East. Peace, which is a gift of God, is also the result of the efforts of men of goodwill, of the national and international institutions, in particular of the states most involved in the search for a solution to conflicts. We must never resign ourselves to the absence of peace. Peace is possible. Peace is urgent. Peace is the indispensable condition for a life worthy of humanity and society. Peace is also the best remedy to avoid emigration from the Middle East. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” we are told in the Psalm (122:6). We pray for peace in the Holy Land. We pray for peace in the Middle East, undertaking to try to ensure that this gift of God to men of goodwill should spread through the whole world."

Petra Beyond the Tourist Route

Petra, one of the new seven wonders of the world, gets crowded these days, especially when the cruise ships bus in crowds by the hundreds for a quick tour of this lost city in the desert.

Maneuvering through such crowds creates a challenge for those who want to focus on what it must have been like to discover the awesome structures carved into the mountians.

After making our way along with the hundreds filing through, we were left to explore on our own, and seven dinars bought us time on a donkey and a glimpse of Petra beyond the tourist.route. With just a couple of hours left in our day, a local Bedouin guided a fellow journalist and I through caves and ruins off the beaten path. We felt like explores as we made our way up the mountain.

But adventure comes with risk andI found myself praying at times that the donkey I was riding would not walk off one of the cliffs as we climbed some steep and narrow steps.

Building Understanding

Father Nabil Haddad, Executive Director of the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center (JICRC) based in Amman, talked about promoting peace between faith traditions during a press briefing on Monday.

In Jordan