Pope Is Mourned Across Middle East
The next pope will have a hard act to follow in the Middle East, where Muslims, Jews and Christians alike mourned the loss of a man they saw as a messenger of peace and tolerance. Pope John Paul II won a place in the hearts of many in the region by starting off the millennium with a tour of the Holy Land, the first by a pontiff in 36 years. His repeated calls for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his opposition to the war in Iraq also earned him favor here.Full Story