Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington and a global leader in interreligious dialogue and human rights, was in the Holy Land on a mission of hope.

He was there in early January, during the same week President Bush was in the Middle East to broker peace.

Cardinal McCarrick visited the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians (including 3,000 Christians), on a humanitarian mission with Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ foreign aid agency. He also visited Israel, where he met with Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israeli legislators and prominent Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders.

Cardinal McCarrick spoke with the Register’s Middle East Correspondent Michele Chabin Jan. 12 in Jerusalem.

What brought you to the Holy Land at this time?

I am part of a group, the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land, that comes here every few months. Ambassador Tony Hall is the leader and I work with him. The group is funded by the U.S. Agency of International Development through the U.S. State Department. Our goal is to try to foster peace in Jerusalem by encouraging the religious leadership to get together and work toward peace.

Are the participants high-level clerics?

They come from the highest levels. They include the two chief rabbis of Israel, Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Rabbi Yonah Metzger, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, Anglican Bishop Suheil Dawani and Munib Younan, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Holy Land and Jordan.

Muslim leaders include Sheikh [Tayseer Rajab Hamed Bayoud] Tamimi, Supreme Judge of the sharia Muslim religious courts in the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian minister of religious affairs.

It’s a group that covers the waterfront of the whole Abrahamic family here in the Holy Land.

How have such a diverse group of religious leaders managed to find common ground?

Where there is a will there is a way. Congressman Frank Wolf from Virginia, a leader in justice and peace and religious freedom, said, “We should help this group.”

Last November we invited the entire group to Washington, D.C., for four days, and the visit accomplished three things: By staying in the same hotel, eating their meals together, they had a chance to become friends and to coalesce as a group. Secondly, we were able to give them a little more publicity and to spotlight this very important element in peacemaking. Thirdly, they were able to meet key people in Washington, both government people and their own colleagues based in the United States.

While in the States, the group issued a very powerful statement saying that differences should be addressed through dialogue, not violence, and that the interests of one religious community can only be served by respecting the interests of other communities.

Now we’re trying to continue this momentum. 

You met with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert during your last visit. What did you gain from this?

We spoke about the council and as a result of the meeting the prime minister promised to personally meet with the members. This was very helpful and we are going to suggest that [Palestinian] President [Mahmoud] Abbas do the same thing. Such encounters with world leaders can give the council’s efforts greater visibility here and greater credibility.

What has particularly struck you, on a personal level, during your visit here?

We went to Gaza with Catholic Relief Services and I’m so grateful for the humanitarian work CRS does there. I have the feeling that the more humanitarian help — not political help — the 1.5 million people in Gaza receive, the stronger they will be. They are not starving, thank God, but they have many health problems, many employment problems.

We worry most about the young people in Gaza. We listened to a group of young Christian and Muslims for perhaps and hour and felt their deep frustration. Young people need to have dreams but they have no dreams.

This was a group of young people in their 20s, university graduates involved in a course on conflict resolution. They’re ready to take work but there are no jobs. They want to take a leadership role but their options are limited.

Christians continue to leave the Holy Land because of the difficulties they face here. What needs to be done to ensure that a Christian presence is retained in the birthplace of Jesus?

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayad, asked me this very question during my last visit. 

He said, “You have to help us make sure we can keep a Christian population here.” I said, “First, we need to pray about it and try to consider the best course.”

Since then, the Palestinian government has started a Christian council with representatives of the different Christian faiths.

The most important thing is that we promote a dialogue and interfaith cooperation on every level, so that our Christian brothers and sisters recognize they have a role to play here. They need to feel they are not just some inconsequential minority that is not counted.

They’re the bridge, or should be the bridge, between Islam and Judaism, between Muslims and Jews here. They share the same ethnic character as the Muslims and the same Abrahamic faith as Jews and Muslims. Christians in the Holy Land are highly educated. We have wonderful Christian schools here of all denominations.

Religion often seems to be a source of division and conflict in the Holy Land. Based on your discussions during this trip with religious and political leaders, are you hopeful that this can change and religious perspectives can serve instead to promote peace?

Things have to change. People of all faiths have to recognize that religion has to be used as a bridge and not as an obstacle.

If you examine the teachings of the Gospels, of the Hebrew Scriptures and the holy Quran, within all you will find tolerance and peace. Obviously, there are some things that have to be understood carefully, but the message of all three scriptures is that we have one God who loves us and that we should love each other.

Do you feel that the Church is doing enough to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East?

I think we’re doing a great deal. The Holy Father has been very beautifully presenting the need for peace and has strongly and eloquently made a strong case for peace, in his World Day of Peace statement and others. He has given us great leadership.

We are now exploring ways to better work with the English, German and other bishops’ conferences to reach our goal.

What can Catholics in America do to help the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank?

We can pray for peace. It begins, but doesn’t end, there.

People should get to know more and more what the situation is. They should read up on it, study it. They should not hesitate to come and visit and learn first-hand the beauty and wonder and difficulties people face here in the Holy Land.

Michele Chabin writes

from Jerusalem.