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Francis took off his shoes to step into the gold-topped dome, which enshrines the rock where Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammad ascended to heaven. Speaking to the grand mufti of Jerusalem and other Muslim authorities, Francis deviated from his prepared remarks to refer not just to his "dear friends" but "dear brothers." "May we respect and love one another as brothers and sisters," he said, and added, "May we learn to understand the suffering of others! May no one abuse the name of God through violence!"

Pope Francis incenses the altar during Mass in the Upper Room on May 26, 2014. Credit: EWTN. Jerusalem, Israel, May 26, 2014 / 09:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At the conclusion of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Pope Francis focused his homily at Mass on the significance of the Upper Room, held to be the site of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus' apostles. “It is a great gift that the Lord has given us by bringing us together here in the Upper Room for the celebration of the Eucharist,” said Pope Francis on May 26 in Jerusalem....

Instead of bowing down to Allah, the Muslims invoke other spiritual measures, such as throwing rocks at the Jews and cursing them.

Wall murals portraying Crusader knights and symbols of medieval military orders have been rediscovered in a Jerusalem hospital thanks to a burst water pipe and a storeroom reorganization. These paintings were the works of a French count, Comte Marie Paul Amédée de Piellat, who believed himself to be a descendant of Crusaders. The count was a frequent visitor to Jerusalem and had the Saint-Louis Hospice built between 1879 and 1896, naming it after St. Louis IX, a king of France and leader of the Seventh Crusade between A.D. 1248 and 1254. . . . . . . .. . ....

When Pope Francis highlights his upcoming pilgrimage to the Holy Land by meeting with the leader of the Orthodox Church, the papal delegation will include Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien, a most interested observer. Since May 2012, the archbishop emeritus of Baltimore has served as grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher, which promotes the support and protection of Christians in the Holy Land. The pope is scheduled to meet May 25 in Jerusalem with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, according to Catholic News Service, “considered first among equals by Orthodox bishops.” According to an official itinerary, the...

Mark Rouk, a 16-year-old Christian Arab boy from east Jerusalem who suffers from a chronic illness, believes the only way for him to heal is with a blessing from the pope Chief Rabbi David Lau says he will invite Rouk to pope's reception ceremony. Photo credit: Courtesy of the Rouk family For one 16-year-old boy from east Jerusalem, Pope Francis' upcoming visit to Israel will be a dream come true. Mark Rouk, a Christian Arab youth who suffers from a chronic illness, approached Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau and asked him to help him meet the pope. In addition to...

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli archaeologist says he has found the legendary citadel captured by King David in his conquest of Jerusalem, rekindling a longstanding debate about using the Bible as a field guide to identifying ancient ruins. The claim by Eli Shukron, like many such claims in the field of biblical archaeology, has run into criticism. It joins a string of announcements by Israeli archaeologists saying they have unearthed palaces of the legendary biblical king, who is revered in Jewish religious tradition for establishing Jerusalem as its central holy city — but who has long eluded historians looking for...

An Israeli startup is poised to bring the printer up to the mobile digital age, by creating a printer that can fit in your pocket. Matan Caspi and Tuvia Elbaum of the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) pioneered the initiative while in college, establishing ZUtA Labs. With the initial funding and support of JCT, the startup succeeded in creating the world’s first ever mini mobile printer. “Print machines nowadays are essentially a print head running on a moving piece of paper,” reads a company statement. “Why can’t we just put the printhead on a set of small wheels and let...

A terrorist "lawyer" from eastern Jerusalem, who had been charged with passing messages to jailed terrorists, committed suicide in his home on Tuesday. The "lawyer," Safadi Amjad, was on house arrest on a local court's orders when he put an end to his life. Amjad had been charged for transferring money and messages from Hamas terrorists imprisoned in Israel to their family members. The ersatz lawyer was one of six who were arrested in late March, after security forces busted their "legal practice" dedicated to aiding Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. The six had used their cover of a legal...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been stepping up its libel that Israel is "destroying" the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the temple mount in Jerusalem, in order to build the "alleged" Temple. The highest PA religious authority, Mufti Muhammad Hussein, asserted in late March that Israel was making an "attempt... at laying hands on the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque... and in addition to the threat of destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque to establish the alleged Temple on its ruins."

Thundering ruling shakes country, Judge also convicts former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, former Bank Hapoalim Chairman Dan Dankner, Olmert's former chief-of-staff Shula Zaken and 10 out of 13 individual defendants.

US to deliver 10 Apache helicopters to Egypt

For half a century, they’ve run a gratis guesthouse for Holocaust victims. Now an era is ending, and the nuns themselves are at something of a loss ...The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary is a Lutheran-based order, but operates independently. It began as a Christian organization founded in 1947 by German theologian and intellectual Dr. Klara Schlink, along with Erika Madauss. As president of the Women’s Division of the German Student Christian Movement from 1933 to 1935, Schlink refused to comply with Nazi policy barring Jewish-born students from meetings. During WWII, Schlink was summoned twice by the Gestapo because of her...

The US Supreme Court Monday decided to hear the case of an American born in Jerusalem, once again taking up the sensitive issue of the status of the contested city, according to AFP. The justices will hear arguments in the case in the fall before deciding on the constitutionality of a 2002 law that directs the State Department to give Israel as the country of birth in passports of Americans born in Jerusalem. At the center of the struggle between the Congress and the presidency is Menachem Zivotofsky, who was born in Jerusalem in 2002 to two American parents. …

Israeli police arrested 16 Palestinians at one of Jerusalem's most revered and politically sensitive holy sites on Sunday as they dispersed protesters opposed to any Jewish attempts to pray there. A police spokesman said officers used stun grenades to disperse dozens of rioters, who threw rocks and firecrackers at them at the site revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's walled Old City. Two officers were slightly injured and treated at the scene in the brief clash, the spokesman added. Five Palestinians were also slightly hurt, a Muslim clergyman said. Police...

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu initiated a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to discuss bilateral issues, Iran and Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement. ... Netanyahu does speak to Putin by phone from time to time, so Tuesday night's conversation - though not a regular occurence - is by no means unprecedented. Russia is a major player in three areas of major concern to Israel: Iran, Syria and arms sales to the Middle East. ... On Monday, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki denied a Haaretz report last week...

The internet has been abuzz with intriguing headlines announcing that scholars have determined that the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” papyrus is “authentic” and that there is “no forgery evidence” in the manuscript. What exactly does this mean? And should Christians be concerned that a new discovery might contradict the biblical account and undermine their faith? Actually, the report from scholars working with the Harvard Divinity School found that the manuscript is much younger than previously thought – in other words, it is even further removed from the time of the New Testament than scholars originally believed – meaning that,...

In 2012, Harvard researcher Karen King revealed the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife." A small piece of papyrus, the lightly worn document was written in Coptic Egyptian, with parts missing and ink faded, and didn't say much. But what it did say, wrote Ariel Sabar in Smithsonian Magazine two years ago was enough to “send jolts through the world of biblical scholarship—and beyond.” The fragment’s 33 words, scattered across 14 incomplete lines, leave a good deal to interpretation. But in King’s analysis, and as she argues in a forthcoming article in the Harvard Theological Review, the “wife” Jesus refers to is probably Mary Magdalene, and Jesus...

It wasn’t what Kerry said on Tuesday, but how he said it, that generated headlines blaming Israel for exploding a deal to extend peace talks. “Poof, that was sort of the moment.” It wasn’t what US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday, but how he said it, that generated headlines from Jerusalem to New York blaming Israel for exploding a deal to extend the peace talks. It was a narrative exclamation, and pause, strong enough to be heard round the world. It fell, like a slow drumbeat, on one of the most sensitive issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,...

Every time Kerry opens his mouth about his Peace Talks Follies, he only makes things worse, especially for himself. Israel’s announcement last week of new homes for a southern Jerusalem neighborhood in an area claimed by the Palestinian Authority was the trigger that caused the blow-up in the American-led effort to extend peace talks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told a Senate committee Tuesday. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that after Israel refused to release a fourth batch of terrorists, and then followed that decision with the housing tender in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem, “poof, that...