MOUNT NEBO, Jordan - Pope Benedict XVI called on Saturday for reconciliation between Christians and Jews during a visit in Jordan to Mount Nebo.
"May our encounter today inspire in us a renewed love for the canon of sacred scripture and a desire to overcome all obstacles to the reconciliation of Christians and Jews in mutual respect and cooperation," the pontiff said on the slopes of the windswept mountain.
"The ancient tradition of pilgrimage to the holy places also reminds us of the inseparable bond between the Church and the Jewish people," he added on the second day of an eight-day Holy Land tour that will also take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The 840-metre (2,800-feet) peak of Mount Nebo, some 40 kilometres (24 miles) southwest of the capital Amman, is holy to all three religions due to the tradition of Moses.
Since Jordan made peace with Israel in 1994, Hebrew-speaking travellers from Israel frequently visit the sanctuary alongside Muslims and Christians wearing crosses.
Benedict was driven in his popemobile past churches in the town of Madaba after he visited Mount Nebo. He was to give blessings at a university in the town.
The Church laments the difficult conditions endured by Christians in Israel.
Most of them Arab, they make up some two percent of Israel's population of some seven million.
Many are simply leaving the country, prompting fears that the Catholic presence will virtually evaporate from the cradle of Christianity.
Israelis are ambivalent about the German pope who was a member of the Hitler Youth and has stirred controversy by backing beatification of a controversial Nazi-era pontiff and lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying British bishop.
In recent months, Israel and the Vatican have clashed over the pope's decision to lift the excommunication of Richard Williamson of Britain; and the sainthood dossier of Pope Pius XII.
Critics accuse Pius XII, who headed the Roman Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958, of having remained silent during the Holocaust that killed an estimated six million Jews.
The history of Christian persecution of Jews, including genocide, exile, pogroms, crusades and discrimination, goes back 2,000 years.
Jews and Christians share a body of holy texts, which the Jews call the Torah and Christians the Old Testament.
Jews do not recognise Jesus as the Messiah and do not consider the New Testaments as divine or holy to them.
Seeing Jesus as a false Messiah, Jews are still awaiting the first coming of the Messiah.
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