Pope John Paul II on Thursday said he shared in the pain of the Palestinian people over the loss of their leader Yasser Arafat and had prayed for him, the pontiff's spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. Arafat was "a leader of great charisma who loved his people and tried to guide them towards national independence," the pontiff said through his spokesman.
"May God in his mercy welcome the soul of the illustrious departed and grant peace to the Holy Land, with two independent sovereign states, completely reconciled with one another," he quoted him as saying.
Pope John Paul II, who was the first pope in history to enter a synagogue and establish diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican, also gave Arafat an audience at the Vatican, for the first time in September 1982 as leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. They had seven other meetings.