Catholic Bishop to Speak to Bush About Jesus' Sermon on the Mount

President Bush is making a swing through the Middle East this week, and is scheduled to take tour of Mount Beatitudes with the accompaniment of Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour of Akko, Israel, who says he plans to talk to the President about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

Catholic News Services' Judith Sudilovsky reports:

Archbishop Chacour, known for his outspokenness, said he felt Bush was trying "to find a way out" of the failures in his Mideast policy and that his visit was a little too late to accomplish anything given his past history and the short time left of his term.

"The sermon was calling for action in a certain direction," the archbishop said in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service. "This is where Christ was calling on all his followers to get up and do something to get their hands dirty, protect the poor, heal the sick, release the prisoners -- including those in Guantanamo Bay, and I will tell him that."

Depending on the conditions, Archbishop Chacour said he may also speak to Bush about the "blood on his hands."

"I think that if he knew how may people have been killed because of his policies (here, in Iraq and in Afghanistan) he would be very sad," the archbishop said...