Pope Benedict XVI heads to the Middle East today as a "pilgrim of peace" between Israelis and Palestinians, but the trip is already overshadowed by tense relations between Jews and Catholics.
"I am eagerly looking forward to being with you and sharing with you your aspirations and hopes as well as your pains and struggles," the 82-year-old head of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics said on Wednesday.
"My primary intention is to visit the places made holy by the life of Jesus, and to pray at them for the gift of peace and unity for your families," he said, describing himself as a "pilgrim of peace".
Nine years after his predecessor John Paul II's groundbreaking visit to the region, Pope Benedict's trip is widely seen as risky given the region's limited prospects for peace.
Notably, the return to power on March 31 of the ultraconservative Benjamin Netanyahu has made a resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict appear more remote than ever.
The Pope "arrives at a delicate time - especially after the (December-January) war in Gaza - to a difficult region to visit very sensitive people," the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fuad Twal, said in a recent interview with CTS News, a Catholic news service there.
"Each day, each gesture, each encounter and each visit will have a political connotation," he said.
Israel will roll out the red carpet for Pope Benedict's 12th trip as head of the Roman Catholic Church, counting on the visit to help rebuild its image following its offensive against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. But it comes against the backdrop of several sources of tension between Israel and the Holy See.
Little more than three months ago, the two sides were embroiled in a row over the Pope's decision to lift the ex-communication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson of Britain.
That came on the heels of remarks by Pope Benedict backing the sainthood dossier of Pope Pius XII, reviled by Jews for his passive stance during the Holocaust.
The most recent bone of contention arose last month when the Vatican sent a delegation to a UN conference on racism in Geneva, where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lambasted Israel as a "racist" and "cruel" regime, prompting 23 European Union delegations to walk out in protest.
The Church, for its part, laments the difficult living conditions of Christians, mainly Arabs, in the occupied Palestinian territories, many of whom have left the region since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000.
The exodus has prompted fears within the Church that eventually the Catholic presence will virtually evaporate from the cradle of Christianity.
Today Christians make up nearly two per cent of Israel's population of seven million, and one per cent of the four million residents of the Palestinian territories.
The Pope will have occasion to broach all these themes during a busy programme that will include some 30 speeches or homilies over eight days.
Pope Benedict is to divide his week-long visit between Jordan and Israel, with a stop in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, on Wednesday.
The Pope will visit Amman's Regina Pacis centre for the handicapped and raise the issue of Iraq's Christian minority during the Jordan leg of his trip, a Vatican spokesman said.