The recent meeting of Pope Francis with religious leaders at Bari to pray with them for peace in the Middle East left me with a sense of déjà vu.
I witnessed a similar meeting in 1986, when Pope John Paul met with religious leaders at Assisi to pray with them for peace in the Middle East. A year later, instead of peace there was a violent Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Much worse was to follow: the rise of Al-Qaeda and Daesh and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
On Easter Sunday 2013, Pope Francis prayed for peace in Syria in front of a worldwide audience. His prayers were ‘answered’ by an escalation of the war in Syria.
In 2014, the Pope invited the Israeli and Palestinian leaders for a prayer meeting at the Vatican. The outcome of this prayer meeting was an embarrassment for Pope Francis and a disappointment for those who believe in the alleged ‘efficacy’ of prayer. Hardly had a month passed before a brutal and destructive war broke out between Israel and Hamas.
That highly-publicised, high-profile prayer meeting has come and gone and no lasting peace in the Middle East has ever resulted from the Pope’s prayers.