The desecrated face of a statue of the crucified Christ in a Jerusalem church should move Catholics around the world “to recognize the pain of so many of our brothers and sisters” in the Holy Land, who have experienced the tragedy of violence and natural disasters, said a top Vatican official.
Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches, has written to bishops around the world asking them to urge their people to generously support the traditional Good Friday collection for the Holy Land.
In 2022, the Diocese of Camden collected $114,895 for the Holy Land collection.
Customarily, 65% of the funds collected goes to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, which ministers to Christians throughout the Middle East and is responsible for most of the shrines connected with the life of Jesus, including the Church of the Flagellation where a Jewish tourist attacked a statue of Christ in early February.
The remaining 35% of the collection goes to the Dicastery for Eastern Churches and funds seminaries, advanced education for priests and nuns and Catholic schools in the Middle East, including Bethlehem University.
The ministry of the Franciscans in supporting the Christian communities of the Middle East and keeping alive the Christian faith in the region includes humanitarian aid, especially now in Syria given the devastating earthquakes that struck in February.
“To the drama of the war that has lasted for over 12 years in Syria, the strong seismic shocks added (to the) devastation caused by collapsed buildings,” Archbishop Gugerotti wrote. “Many of our brothers and sisters in faith and in humanity have faced a new exodus from their homes, this time no longer for fear of bombs or for what the invasion of the Plain of Nineveh had meant in Iraq, but because their very houses trembled.”
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