DHAKA: A Vatican advance team is expected in Israel in the near future to plan for a likely papal visit in late May.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who will fly to Rome on Sunday and meet Pope Francis the next morning, will extend a formal invitation for him to visit the Holy Land.

President Shimon Peres visited the pope in April and invited him to Israel, but the Vatican was noncommittal at that time.

The visit, which would be the first since Pope Benedict XVI visited in 2009, is tentatively set for May 25-26. No formal Vatican confirmation of the trip has yet been received, however, and Vatican press officials said the reports of the date were not accurate.

Monday’s meeting between Netanyahu and the pope will be the first since Francis was elected to the supreme position in March.

Israeli diplomatic officials said that any time the pope and the prime minister meet it is significant, especially since the idea of Jewish sovereignty was not always something easy for the Vatican to accept Israel and the Vatican only established diplomatic ties in 1993.

Source: JP
BDST: 1505 HRS, NOV 29, 2013