Irish Christian leaders barred from Western Wall for wearing crosses

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The rabbi of the Western Wall says officials barred visiting Irish church leaders from praying there because they were wearing crosses. Roman Catholic Cardinal Sean Brady, Church of Ireland Archbishop Alan Harper and Presbyterian and Methodist Moderators John Finlay and Roy Cooper arrived Thursday at the wall in the Old City of Jerusalem without informing Israeli authorities, Brady told the Irish broadcast network RTE. "We encountered some difficulty in gaining access. There was a difficulty about us wearing our crosses," he said. "We were under constraints of time... and we decided to move on." The site's rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz, said all must respect its sanctity to Jews. "They were asked to remove the crosses, but they refused," he said.