The Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East is being held in Rome from 10th to 24th October. Pope Benedict XVI decided to hold the Synod after his trip to the Holy Land in May 2009, to reflect on the subject “The Catholic Church in the Middle East: communion and testimony".
"Every day, the Friars Minor of the Custody of the Holy Land are admiring witnesses and generous and diligent promoters of the physical and spiritual movement that brings millions of people to return to and gather in Jerusalem, where they are in search of the centre, the heart and the first source of faith and Christian life,”, said the Custos off the Holy Land, Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa in his speech at the Synod.
Here is the speech Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land, gave:
“Most Eminent and Excellent Fathers,
Illustrious Authorities and Members of this Synod.
In the Holy Land, too often the pastoral perspective takes as its starting point the problems and the situation rather than the vocation of the Christians and the Churches of those special and blessed lands (cf. Instrumentum laboris, no. 6). I, however, believe that we are at a time and in a place where it is necessary to start off from the vocation that is proper to the Churches of the Holy Land. Moreover, this seems to me to be the sense of the invitation by the Holy Father in his inaugural Homily, when he asked us to look on this land as God does, “from on high”. I would also like to begin my speech recalling the first manifestation of the Church in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost; “We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travellers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God." They were all astounded and bewildered, and said to one another, "What does this mean?" (Acts 2, 9-12)
This universal encounter of all languages in Jerusalem and their meeting in God is not only memory, but it is still the present and future. Today as then, the Church of Jerusalem was born and develops with a universal vocation and opening. Every day, the Friars Minor of the Custody of the Holy Land are admiring witnesses and – not infrequently – generous and diligent promoters of the physical and spiritual movement that brings millions of people to return to and gather in Jerusalem, where they are in search of the centre, the heart and the first source of the Christian faith and life.
Ad Intra As a Christian community living in the Holy Land, we have to rediscover being and living in the places of the origins. However it is not simply and solely a question of places. We are and we experience the living memory of the Incarnation. This has not only taken place in time, but also in a space. Living in that space with vitality is vocation and service to the whole of the Church. We are asked to recover and develop this awareness. The pastors and the faithful of the Churches of the Holy Land must develop a greater knowledge of those places that someone has defined “the fifth Gospel”. The Holy Places are an important opportunity for evangelization and prayer, as well as a certainty of the Christian identity of the Holy Land. Jerusalem in particular cannot be seen only as the result of a struggle between opposing factions; it remains the starting point and the arrival of the wanderings of the faith of every believer in Christ, indeed, of anyone who shares Abraham’s faith. The pilgrims who come to the Holy Land from al over the world, like the presence of Jewish and Muslim faithful around the same sacred area of the Holy City appear to the eyes of faith as a fulfilment, even if only a partial one, of the prophecy of the gathering of all peoples on Mount Zion to be instructed in the ways of the Lord and to walk in His paths (cf. Is 2, 2-4; Micah 4, 2-4).
There is therefore the need for renewed care for the formation and catechism of all those who are preparing to be pastors and of the faithful so that they are all up to the challenges that evangelization and the mission present in this time of our and in this Land of ours. A pastoral that concentrates more of the studied, meditated and announced Word of God appears essential (cf. Instrumentum laboris, nos. 8; 62-69). The difficulties, and even the prohibitions, that the explicit announcement of the Gospel encounters in our lands must not push us only to preserve what exists but ask us as individuals and as a community, to be creative, capable of eloquent and incisive testimony.
Ad Extra The pilgrimages on the one hand, the multiple character – multilingual, multiracial and multi-ritual – of the Church of the Holy Land on the other, ask us to be an increasingly “extrovert” Church, I would say hospitable, open to the others and to the other. The Church of the Holy Land has always been a minority. Being a minority is part of our identity and we must not turn this into a drama. This condition reminds us that we are not nor do we exist for ourselves, but to enter into relation with all those who meet us and urge us to be constructive. And this, to tell the truth, happens. Although being little more than 1 per cent of the population, the Church reaches more than 5 per cent of the population with its works.
Allow me here to recall the service of the Custody of the Holy Land in education, assistance and university training, offered not only to Latin Christians but also to the faithful of other confessions and religions. In recent years, the Custody of the Holy Land has opened o collaboration for the pastoral care of groups of Hebrew-speaking Catholics and Catholic immigrants (c.r Instrumentum laboris, nos. 49-53). The centres for study, research and reception and social communication, founded and supported by the Custody, such as the Franciscan Centre of Oriental Studies in Cairo, the Memorial of St. Paul in Damascus, the Magnificat Institute of Music, the Franciscan Multimedia Centre and the Faculty of Biblical Sciences and Archaeology in Jerusalem are open to Christians of every confession.
Being a minority must not prevent us from being vibrant witnesses to faith and belonging, from making strong and precise cultural proposals, the only space of confrontation possible in our Land. Being a minority must not make us close up, but open up to new forms of creativity, which are not only allowed but at times even expected by our brothers of other faiths.
For us, living in the Holy Land, the ecumenical commitment is first of all the daily encounter of people, of brothers and sisters who, beyond diversities, share the common Christian path and the shared commitment to peace (Instrumentum laboris, no. 82). But it is also the daily expression of the task that the prejudices and history have given us and that in the Holy Land become tangible and concrete. As far as the delicate and difficult political scenario is concerned, without entering into delicate questions and which are already discussed amongst ourselves, even amongst ourselves, I would like to underline here how it is not always clear to us either and that is, that it is up to us, Christians of the Holy Land, who do not lay claim to territories and privileged positions, to preserve, keep visible and jealously defend in all the ways possible and in all public places, the Christian character of the Holy Land and of Jerusalem, something that is not always obvious and perhaps not always accepted.
Il Custode di Terra Santa al Sinodo
"Every day, the Friars Minor of the Custody of the Holy Land are admiring witnesses and generous and diligent promoters of the physical and spiritual movement that brings millions of people to return to and gather in Jerusalem, where they are in search of the centre, the heart and the first source of faith and Christian life,”, said the Custos off the Holy Land, Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa in his speech at the Synod.
Here is the speech Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land, gave:
“Most Eminent and Excellent Fathers,
Illustrious Authorities and Members of this Synod.
In the Holy Land, too often the pastoral perspective takes as its starting point the problems and the situation rather than the vocation of the Christians and the Churches of those special and blessed lands (cf. Instrumentum laboris, no. 6). I, however, believe that we are at a time and in a place where it is necessary to start off from the vocation that is proper to the Churches of the Holy Land. Moreover, this seems to me to be the sense of the invitation by the Holy Father in his inaugural Homily, when he asked us to look on this land as God does, “from on high”. I would also like to begin my speech recalling the first manifestation of the Church in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost; “We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travellers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God." They were all astounded and bewildered, and said to one another, "What does this mean?" (Acts 2, 9-12)
This universal encounter of all languages in Jerusalem and their meeting in God is not only memory, but it is still the present and future. Today as then, the Church of Jerusalem was born and develops with a universal vocation and opening. Every day, the Friars Minor of the Custody of the Holy Land are admiring witnesses and – not infrequently – generous and diligent promoters of the physical and spiritual movement that brings millions of people to return to and gather in Jerusalem, where they are in search of the centre, the heart and the first source of the Christian faith and life.
Ad Intra As a Christian community living in the Holy Land, we have to rediscover being and living in the places of the origins. However it is not simply and solely a question of places. We are and we experience the living memory of the Incarnation. This has not only taken place in time, but also in a space. Living in that space with vitality is vocation and service to the whole of the Church. We are asked to recover and develop this awareness. The pastors and the faithful of the Churches of the Holy Land must develop a greater knowledge of those places that someone has defined “the fifth Gospel”. The Holy Places are an important opportunity for evangelization and prayer, as well as a certainty of the Christian identity of the Holy Land. Jerusalem in particular cannot be seen only as the result of a struggle between opposing factions; it remains the starting point and the arrival of the wanderings of the faith of every believer in Christ, indeed, of anyone who shares Abraham’s faith. The pilgrims who come to the Holy Land from al over the world, like the presence of Jewish and Muslim faithful around the same sacred area of the Holy City appear to the eyes of faith as a fulfilment, even if only a partial one, of the prophecy of the gathering of all peoples on Mount Zion to be instructed in the ways of the Lord and to walk in His paths (cf. Is 2, 2-4; Micah 4, 2-4).
There is therefore the need for renewed care for the formation and catechism of all those who are preparing to be pastors and of the faithful so that they are all up to the challenges that evangelization and the mission present in this time of our and in this Land of ours. A pastoral that concentrates more of the studied, meditated and announced Word of God appears essential (cf. Instrumentum laboris, nos. 8; 62-69). The difficulties, and even the prohibitions, that the explicit announcement of the Gospel encounters in our lands must not push us only to preserve what exists but ask us as individuals and as a community, to be creative, capable of eloquent and incisive testimony.
Ad Extra The pilgrimages on the one hand, the multiple character – multilingual, multiracial and multi-ritual – of the Church of the Holy Land on the other, ask us to be an increasingly “extrovert” Church, I would say hospitable, open to the others and to the other. The Church of the Holy Land has always been a minority. Being a minority is part of our identity and we must not turn this into a drama. This condition reminds us that we are not nor do we exist for ourselves, but to enter into relation with all those who meet us and urge us to be constructive. And this, to tell the truth, happens. Although being little more than 1 per cent of the population, the Church reaches more than 5 per cent of the population with its works.
Allow me here to recall the service of the Custody of the Holy Land in education, assistance and university training, offered not only to Latin Christians but also to the faithful of other confessions and religions. In recent years, the Custody of the Holy Land has opened o collaboration for the pastoral care of groups of Hebrew-speaking Catholics and Catholic immigrants (c.r Instrumentum laboris, nos. 49-53). The centres for study, research and reception and social communication, founded and supported by the Custody, such as the Franciscan Centre of Oriental Studies in Cairo, the Memorial of St. Paul in Damascus, the Magnificat Institute of Music, the Franciscan Multimedia Centre and the Faculty of Biblical Sciences and Archaeology in Jerusalem are open to Christians of every confession.
Being a minority must not prevent us from being vibrant witnesses to faith and belonging, from making strong and precise cultural proposals, the only space of confrontation possible in our Land. Being a minority must not make us close up, but open up to new forms of creativity, which are not only allowed but at times even expected by our brothers of other faiths.
For us, living in the Holy Land, the ecumenical commitment is first of all the daily encounter of people, of brothers and sisters who, beyond diversities, share the common Christian path and the shared commitment to peace (Instrumentum laboris, no. 82). But it is also the daily expression of the task that the prejudices and history have given us and that in the Holy Land become tangible and concrete. As far as the delicate and difficult political scenario is concerned, without entering into delicate questions and which are already discussed amongst ourselves, even amongst ourselves, I would like to underline here how it is not always clear to us either and that is, that it is up to us, Christians of the Holy Land, who do not lay claim to territories and privileged positions, to preserve, keep visible and jealously defend in all the ways possible and in all public places, the Christian character of the Holy Land and of Jerusalem, something that is not always obvious and perhaps not always accepted.
Il Custode di Terra Santa al Sinodo