Pope meets ‘angel of peace’ Abbas after treaty announcement

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis met Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on Saturday, calling him “an angel of peace”, days after the Vatican said it was preparing to sign its first accord with Palestine to the anger of Israel.

Abbas met the pontiff for about 20 minutes at a private audience, which came a day before the head of the Roman Catholic Church was due to canonise two Palestinian nuns, who will become the first Palestinian Arabs to gain sainthood.

The Vatican said in a statement the Pope and Abbas discussed the peace process with Israel and that “the hope was expressed that direct negotiations between the parties be resumed in order to find a just and lasting solution to the conflict”.

“To this end the wish was reiterated that, with the support of the international community, Israelis and Palestinians may take with determination courageous decisions to promote peace,” it said.

The two men also touched on other conflicts in the Middle East and the need to combat “terrorism”, it added.

They exchanged gifts with the Pope giving Abbas a medal with a figure of the angel of peace “which destroys the evil spirit of war”.

“I thought of you because you are an angel of peace,” he told Abbas.

On Wednesday, the Vatican announced that it was preparing to sign its first treaty with Palestine, two years after officially recognising it as a state.

A bilateral commission is putting the final touches to the agreement, on the Catholic Church’s life and activities in Palestine.

The agreement would “be signed in the near future”, the Vatican statement said.

The news of the treaty drew ire from Israel earlier this week.

“Israel heard with disappointment the decision of the Holy See to agree a final formulation of an agreement with the Palestinians including the use of the term ‘Palestinian State’,” said an Israeli foreign ministry official.

“Such a development does not further the peace process and distances the Palestinian leadership from returning to direct bilateral negotiations. Israel will study the agreement and consider its next step.”

The agreement, 15 years in the making, expresses the Vatican’s “hope for a solution to the Palestinian question and the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians according to the Two-State Solution,” Antoine Camilleri, the Vatican’s deputy foreign minister, said in an interview earlier this week.

In an interview with the Vatican’s Osservatore Romano newspaper, Camilleri said he hoped “the accord could, even in an indirect way, help the Palestinians in the establishment and recognition of an independent, sovereign and democratic State of Palestine”.

The Palestinian Authority considers the Vatican one of 136 countries to have recognised Palestine as a state, although the number is disputed and several recognitions by what are now European Union member states date back to the Soviet era.

First Palestinian saints

Abbas’ meeting with the Pope came a day before two nuns who lived in Ottoman Palestine during the 19th century will be made saints at a Vatican ceremony.

Marie Alphonsine Ghattas of Jerusalem and Mariam Bawardy of Galilee will become the first Palestinian Arabs to gain sainthood.