The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams today appealed for greater understanding among the people of the Middle East.
Dr Williams warned that a sense of suffering could prevent us from reaching justice for everyone because we would want the justice that was “ours alone”.
He said in an address to the Anglican Church of the Redeemer in Amman, Jordan that the history of any community is “shot through” with the “stuff of nightmares”.
The Archbishop added: “Reading Christian history should tell us as clearly as we could wish that there is hardly any Church that has not been responsible at some point for another Church’s suffering.
"It is so hard to come to the point where we are free to say ‘I must make something from my suffering that will build bridges into the suffering of another’.
“How much easier to say ‘my suffering is greater than yours, my needs must override yours’.
“And so we never come to a place where justice for everyone can be worked out because we want first of all to have the justice that is ours alone, whatever the expense to anyone else.”
Dr Williams’ address was given on the first day of a five-day pastoral trip to the Anglican diocese of Jerusalem.
Earlier today he met Jordanian king Abdullah II bin Al Hussein and visited Madaba, a Roman Catholic church on the site where, according to tradition, Moses was shown the Promised Land.
Dr Williams was travelling tomorrow to Jerusalem where his schedule includes courtesy calls on the patriarchs in Jerusalem and addressing a service at St George’s Anglican Cathedral in the city.
On Wednesday he was meeting Israeli ministers including Israeli president Moshe Katsav. Dr Williams will visit Ramallah and make a courtesy call to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Thursday.
He will also journey to Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity.
The Church of the Mount of the Beatitudes is his last stop before returning home on Friday.