The Vatican has been forced to contradict reports that Pope Francis will attend the funeral of Shimon Peres in Israel tomorrow. Instead, the pope will carry out a planned visit to Georgia.
The announcement in Rome came after the Israeli Foreign Ministry yesterday briefed the world's media that the pope would attend alongside Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Francois Hollande and some 80 other world leaders.
The potentially embarrassing mix-up is not the first time Pope Francis has been caught up in a diplomatic flurry with Israel under its tough and somewhat pushy prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Anyone in the Holy Land covering the pope's May 2014 visit would struggle to forget a bizarre episode which followed the pope's iconic prayer at the West Bank security barrier.
At the height of his popularity, Francis found himself at the centre of a propaganda war between Israel and the Palestinians following his gesture, that became the defining image of his three-day visit to the Middle East.
It ended up with the pope hastily agreeing to make an unscheduled visit to a monument for Zionism and a memorial to victims of terrorism in Jerusalem with Netanyahu.
After Israeli officials were alarmed by the West Bank gesture, Netanyahu persuaded the pope to visit the Memorial To The Victims of Terror on Mount Zion, after laying a wreath at the tomb of Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Netanyahu showed Pope Francis a panel with the names of 85 victims of an attack in Buenos Aires on a Jewish community centre in 1994, and the pope briefly laid his hand on the memorial and called terrorism "evil."
Then, with characteristic chutzpah, Netanyahu later issued a statement confirming that he had asked the pope to make the stop and that he had briefed him on the advantages of the security barrier, which Israel claims has prevented suicide bombings.
"I want to thank the pope for accepting my request to visit this memorial," he said. "I explained to the pope that the establishment of the barrier he visited yesterday has prevented many more victims of Palestinian terror that continues to this very day and that Palestinian terrorists were planning and continue to plan."
Over at a press briefing in Jerusalem the pope's official spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi was repeatedly questioned about the unscheduled visits. Asked to confirm that Israeli officials were "angry" after the pope prayed at the security barrier, he confirmed that he had heard such reports, adding that the visit to the memorial was "very appreciated" by Israel.
Then as now, the pope could be forgiven for empathising with various world leaders, including Barack Obama, who have found dealings with Netanyahu at times tricky, to put it mildly.
But in a sign of what Israel has lost in its late president, there was no such complication with Francis' relationship with Peres, which was straightforwardly one of mutual admiration.
On the day the 2014 row with Israel erupted, the pope was probably relieved to be having a meeting with Peres, whom Francis praised as a "man of peace and a peacemaker", the same words he used to describe Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but not Netanyahu.
"I appreciate and admire the approach you have taken," the pope told Peres. "Peacemaking demands first and foremost respect for the dignity and freedom of every human person, which Jews, Christians and Muslims alike believe to be created by God and destined to eternal life... Here I renew my plea that all parties avoid initiatives and actions which contradict their stated determination to reach a true agreement and that they tirelessly work for peace, with decisiveness and tenacity."
In what some in the Middle East had hoped might be the start of a fresh peace initiative, the pope brought Peres and Abbas together the following month, along with the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, at the Vatican.
Yesterday he echoed his call for peace in a heartfelt tribute to Peres, whom he last met with at the Vatican in June.
"I fondly recall my time with Mr Peres at the Vatican and renew my great appreciation for the late President's tireless efforts in favour of peace," he said.
"As the State of Israel mourns Mr Peres, I hope that his memory and many years of service will inspire us all to work with ever greater urgency for peace and reconciliation between peoples. In this way, his legacy will truly be honoured and the common good for which he so diligently laboured will find new expressions, as humanity strives to advance on the path towards enduring peace."
