[haffast]

"Francis had indicated in July he would visit Israel in 2014 to mark the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s visit to Jerusalem in 1964, which took place before the Vatican recognized the State of Israel. “The government of Israel granted me a unique opportunity to come to Jerusalem,” Francis said at the time.

"The visit would mark Francis’s second to the Holy Land. He visited in 1973, arriving just as the Yom Kippur War broke out. As The Times of Israel revealed in April, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (as he was known then) spent six days confined to his Jerusalem hotel, studying the Letters of Saint Paul to the Corinthians."

2014 shaping up to be a banner year.