The Fallen Angel

winding staircase-like gorge separating Jerusalem from the sea. Gabriel pointed out some of the villages that had seen the worst fighting during Israel’s War of Independence; then Jerusalem appeared before them, floating, as though held aloft by the hand of God. The pope peered intently out his window as they crossed the city from west to east, new to old. As they passed over the Temple Mount, the golden Dome of the Rock sparkled in the midday sun. Gabriel showed the pope the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Dormition, and the Garden of Gethsemane.
    “And your son?” asked the pope.
    “There,” said Gabriel as they passed over the Mount of Olives.
    The helicopter banked gently to the south and flew along the 1949 Green Line, now commonly referred to as the pre-1967 border. From the air, it was plain to see how the border had effectively dissolved after more than forty years of Israeli occupation. In the span of a few seconds, they passed over the mixed Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor, the small West Bank Jewish settlement of Har Homa, and the Arab village of Beit Jala. Adjacent to Beit Jala was Bethlehem. Manger Square was easily visible from the distance, for it was crammed with several thousand people, each one waving a small Palestinian flag. On the roads leading into the city, not a car moved, only the trucks and jeeps of the IDF.
    “This is where things are going to get political,” Gabriel told Donati. “It’s important to keep things moving, especially since the guest of honor will be the only male dressed entirely in white from head to toe.”
    As the helicopter set down, President Mahmoud Abbas and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority waited on a dais outside the Church of the Nativity. “Welcome, Your Holiness, to the ancient land of Palestine,” Abbas exclaimed, loudly enough for the remark to be heard by the reporters standing nearby. “And welcome to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the eternal and indivisible capital of Palestine.” The pope responded with a noncommittal nod and then greeted the rest of the delegation. Most were clearly pleased to be in his presence, but one, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a former leader of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, seemed far more intrigued by the bodyguard who never strayed more than a few inches from the pope’s shoulder.
    Entering the church, the pope spent a few minutes in silent prayer at the Altar of the Nativity. Then he asked Abbas to show him the damage that had been done to the church in 2002, when a group of Palestinian terrorists seized the sacred Christian site in an effort to evade capture. At the conclusion of the ninety-three-day standoff, Israeli forces discovered forty explosive devices concealed within the church, while Franciscan clerics held hostage during the siege described how the Palestinian terrorists looted the church of gold icons and used pages of the Christian Bible for toilet paper. All this, however, was apparently news to Mahmoud Abbas. “The only damage done to the church,” he insisted, “was done by the Israelis. As you know, they are profoundly anti-Christian.”
    “If that is the case,” the pope replied coolly, “why has the Christian population of Bethlehem fallen from ninety-five percent to just one-third? And why are Christians fleeing the territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority at an alarming rate?”
    Abbas smiled weakly and looked at his wristwatch. “Perhaps, Your Holiness, it might be a good time to pay a visit to Dheisheh.”
    The camp was located about a mile to the south of Bethlehem on a patch of land leased from the Jordanian government after the conclusion of the War of Independence. Originally, some three thousand Palestinians, mainly from Jerusalem and Hebron, lived there in tents. Now, more than sixty years later, the tents had been replaced by cinderblock structures, and the population of the camp had grown to nearly thirteen thousand registered refugees. With unemployment rampant, most were permanent wards of the United Nations, and the camp was a hotbed of militant activity. Even so, the residents cheered the pope as he walked the narrow streets with Gabriel at his side.
    At the conclusion of the tour, in the camp’s dusty central square, the pope lamented what he described as “the terrible suffering of the Palestinian people.” But in an abrupt departure from his prepared text, he pointedly criticized the failure of three generations