Pope Benedict XVI arrives at Rome's Ciampino

Pope Benedict XVI arrives at Rome's Ciampino military airport on May 15, 2009, from Israel at the end of an eight-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land that also took him to Jordan and the occupied West Bank. During his pilgrimage, the Pontiff appealed for peace in the land revered by the world's three main monotheistic faiths that has been wrecked by decades of violence. During his pilgrimage, the pope prayed at some of Christianity's most sacred destinations, visited Muslim and Jewish holy sites at the heart of the Middle East conflict, stood in silence at Israel's Holocaust memorial and saw the conditions in which Palestinians refugees live.

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