[Karuna Shinsho, Asia Tonight:] Pope John Paul II is urging Christians to intensify their prayers for peace in the Middle East. He made the statement after hearing about the Israeli teenagers found bludgeoned to death in the West Bank. The Pope is preparing to leave Malta for home, after completing a trip that took him to the Holy Land. Jim Bittermann looks at the Pope's journey.
[Jim Bittermann, Cnn Correspondent:] Here, one Catholic volunteer said, the Pope is among family. And indeed, after four days of travel through not always religiously friendly territory, John Paul II ended his trip on a Mediterranean island where the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked, where divorce and abortion are still illegal and where 98 percent of the population is Roman Catholic. Perhaps the reason the most part of the 380,000 people who live on Malta came out for papal Mass. To the delight of the Maltese, John Paul used the occasion to beatify three of their own three especially devoted Catholics from Malta who now have been launched on the path toward sainthood. The Pope, who has now beatified well over 1,000 saints during his 23-year reign, seems intent on giving even the smallest of nations a saint who they can identify with and look up to. [on camera]: The Maltese, the Pope said, are in the center of the Mediterranean and in a unique position to build bridges to other peoples. And in many ways, that's what this papal trip has been all about. [voice-over]: In Greece, John Paul trying to build bridges to other Christians. In Syria, he reached out to Muslims. Ill and often tired, the Pope continues to lay the groundwork for relations, which the Vatican spokesman says will become a part of the heritage of the church.
[Joaquin Navarro-valls, Vatican Spokesman:] I cannot deny that he is tired. He is very tired. But at the same time, public opinion should focus on what he's achieving with those trips, and achieving not only for the Catholic Church and not only in the fate of relationship of the Catholic Church with different other faiths or religions, like Islam, but for humanity as such with that message of tolerance, mutual confidence and so on.
[Bittermann:] At the end of this trip, as never before, questions were raised about how much longer John Paul can physically continue traveling. The Vatican confirms there are at least two more trips in the planning stages for this year to the Ukraine and Armenia. And more travel next year. "He has decided to do it," said the Pope's spokesman, "and he will do it." Jim Bittermann, CNN, Malta.