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More than 2,000 years after Jesus lived, walked and preached in the Holy Land, Christians make up only about one or two percent of the total population there.

A collection will once again be taken up in parishes of the Albany Diocese on Good Friday, April 2, to support ministries to Christians in the Holy Land.

Franciscans have served that minority group in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, following in Jesus' footsteps, since the early 1200s. They became Custodians of the Shrines in 1342.

"Pope Benedict has used the analogy that the Catholic Church in the East and the West are two lungs of the one Body of Christ," wrote Rev. Jeremy Harrington, OFM, commissary of the Holy Land Franciscan Monastery in Washington. "The Church needs both."

In recent years, the funds have been used to restore Christian shrines and improve facilities, such as the Shrine of the Visitation in Ein Karem and the Convent of St. Lazarus in Bethany.

The order is also creating on a pilgrim itinerary in Magdala, the presumed home of Mary Magdalene.

"One only has to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to see that not only are the shrines in good physical condition, but schools continue and orphanages continue," Rev. R. Adam Forno, pastor at St. John the Evangelist and St. Joseph parish in Rensselaer, told The Evangelist.

A board member for Beth-lehem University, the only Catholic university in the Holy Land, Father Forno has been to Bethlehem seven times.

He confirmed that the Christians there need support: the Israeli West Bank barrier cut the Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem in half.

Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of the Albany Diocese agreed.

"For the Church to survive there, it must rely upon a loving and nurturing solidarity on the part of each Christian - a solidarity which bears witness to faith in Him who was born in that land, who preached the Gospel there and who also died and was resurrected there," Bishop Hubbard wrote in his pulpit letter.

"The daily news reminds us of the violence and instability plaguing the Middle East, but we rarely hear of the Christian community there, a community that struggles to remain in the land of Christ's birth, death and resurrection," he continued.

Holy Land ministries are also interfaith: Franciscans provide some rent-free housing to the poor of the area and support the Magnificat Institute music school, which welcomes adults and children of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim faiths.

The collection has averaged about $25 million each year for the past few years.

(04/01/10) [[In-content Ad]]

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