“Pilgrimages are made complete by encounters with the living Church in the Holy Land. The Church in Jerusalem was the mother church for us all. It was to the Church in Jerusalem that the other early communities looked for guidance…. We hope that pilgrimages to the Holy Land will be an occasion to build solidarity between American pilgrims and the Church in the Holy Land whose center today is Jerusalem.
Pilgrims ought not to visit the historic and modern Holy Land without encountering the living Christian community. Likewise, they must also take pains to encounter the diverse peoples and traditions of the Holy Land.”