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Pope Prays for Peace in Israel

April 8, 1996
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In an Easter message broadcast live by television to 65 countries, Pope John Paul II prayed for a victory of peace over violence in the Middle East and elsewhere.

He spoke following an open-air Easter Sunday mass celebrated before more than 100,000 people in St. Peter’s Square.

The pope called on God to “strengthen the artisans of justice and peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Ireland, and in the Middle East, and particularly in the Holy Land, where hopes for peaceful coexistence are still jeopardized by recourse to force and violence.”

During the mass, he referred to Jews as “our older brothers” and prayed that God make them “intrepid promoters of freedom and peace.”

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