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Church leaders follow Egyptian unrest

John Thavis | Catholic News Service

A demonstrator shouts slogans during a protest outside the White House in Washington Jan. 29. Protests also took place in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York. In Washington about 150 people marched from the Egyptian Embassy to the White House and stood outside the gates, calling on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to resign.

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VATICAN CITY – Church leaders were watching the unfolding
political drama in Egypt with a mixture of hope for reform
and concern over potential violence, said the head of the
Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.

Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa told Vatican Radio Jan. 30
that the widespread unrest that has weakened the 30-year rule
of President Hosni Mubarak came as a surprise to Catholics in
the region.

“We all sense that these are epochal changes. None of us
would have imagined these kinds of developments a few months
ago,” he said.

“This means that there are currents, especially in the Arab
world, that now have found visible expression. This is
certainly a positive sign, but it’s also worrying because we
don’t know how all this will end – we hope with the least
possible amount of violence and bloodshed,” he said.

Father Pizzaballa said he hoped that “respect for religious
minorities will be preserved” in Egypt. His concern appeared
to reflect the fact that Mubarak’s opponents include both
radical and moderate Muslim groups, and it was unclear who
might assume power if the president resigns.

Father Pizzaballa spoke on a church-sponsored day of prayer
for peace in the Holy Land. At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI
marked the day with a prayer to “lead minds and hearts toward
concrete projects of peace.” He did not specifically mention
the unrest in Egypt.

The pope, joined by two Italian youths, then released two
doves from his apartment window as a sign of peace.

In his comments to Vatican Radio, Father Pizzaballa said the
search for peace and freedom involves “not allowing oneself
to be dominated by passions.”

“We all see how in the Middle East, in the Holy Land and in
Jerusalem, passions can blind people. Instead, to have real
freedom, we need a certain distance from things in order to
see them more clearly,” he said.

He said real freedom in the Middle East needs to include
religious freedom, access to places of worship and holy
places, and freedom of religious expression.

Francesco Zannini, who teaches at the Pontifical Institute
for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome, said the situation in
Egypt reflected the weakening political power of Arab leaders
who have ruled as “monarchs” but who are threatened by
changes brought by globalization.

In Egypt, it was unclear whether the momentum of the unrest
was great enough to bring lasting reforms, Zannini told the
Rome-based agency AsiaNews. One big question, he said, was
whether Mohamed ElBaradei, an opposition leader and Nobel
Peace Prize winner, had the capacity to govern Egypt.

Zannini said that although Islamic extremists had begun to
join the protests in Egypt, he doubted whether they would
ever present a governing alternative there. He said he
thought radical Islam was losing influence among the
populations of the Middle East, and had shown itself too
inflexible to have success on a political level, where
consensus-building is needed.

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