A little light on the Israel-Vatican diplomatic horizon

CWNews:

Israel has set a new policy expediting the process of granting visas to Catholic priests and religious, the country's embassy to the Holy See has announced.

The Israeli government has agreed to give high priority to visa requests from Catholic Church workers from Arabic countries. The new policy is intended to address the problems of priests and religious who travel frequently between Israel and Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories. Many of these clerics have been forced to apply for an entry visa to return after each trip outside Israel.

The visa restrictions were a major problem for the Latin-rite Catholic patriarchate of Jerusalem, which covers territory in Jordan and Cyprus. Many of the priests and seminarians of the patriarchate are natives of Arab countries, who have been subject to the strict visa requirements. A similar situation has handicapped the activities of Eastern Catholic churches in the Holy Land.

This has been causing Vatican/Israel friction for some time, so it's good to see progress being made.

There's still plenty to do.