ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM TEL AVIV (CNS) – During an inflight news conference May 26 on his return to Rome from the Holy Land, Pope Francis answered several questions about his dramatic gestures during the visit to the Holy Land.

He said that when he prayed at the controversial Israeli-built separation wall in the West Bank and kissed the hands of Holocaust survivors, they were the “most authentic gestures” because they are the ones “you don’t think about … mine were not planned gestures, it just occurs to me to do something spontaneously that way.”