"It has been the wish of my life to visit the Holy Land," wrote Giovanni Battista Montini, then Cardinal-Archbishop of Milan, to a bishop friend in November 1962. Last week, in his final address to the Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI surprised the prelates by announcing that he will indeed visit the holy places of Jordan and Israel on a three-day trip next month. It will be the first papal voyage outside Italy since Napoleon forced the unhappy Pius VII to take up residence at Fontainebleau in 1812, and the first time since the days of St. Peter that a reigning...
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