Catholic World News News Feature

Jerusalem Patriarch raps Israelis, Palestinians alike March 04, 2004

The Latin-rite Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem strongly criticized both Israeli and Palestinian leaders in his annual Lenten message.

Patriarch Michel Sabbah issued a two-part message for Lent, with the first section devoted exclusively to the need for prayer, fasting, and spiritual renewal. In the second section, he addressed the continuing conflict in the Holy Land. He suggested that Lent would be a good occasion for both examining consciences and exhibiting Christian charity-- "living-- within our souls and our prayers-- the oppression of some and the fears of others." The struggle will end, he said, when leaders come to understand that they must be "the servants of the people, instead of serving themselves and their own interests."

The Palestinian prelate said: "Those responsible for war in this land seem to be acting these days as if they were planning for a permanent war and not for a permanent peace."

[The full text of the Patriarch's message is available through the Fides news service.]

In a statement clearly intended to challenge both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, he continued:

Peace cannot be established while oppression and the violence that results from it continue. Depriving a people of its liberty and of its land is oppression that no conscience can accept. Likewise, no conscience can accept killing innocent people in order to protest oppression.

The conflict in the Holy Land is severely handicapping the mission of the Church, the Patriarch continued. He noted that "priests and men and women religious in the parishes spend long hours at the military checkpoints in order to carry out their pastoral work." But Patriarch Michel urged Church workers to be patient in these trials. "Accept these difficulties as a sharing with all the poor ones of this land," he urged them.

The Patriarch concluded his Lenten message with a quotation from St. Cyril of Jerusalem: "Do not rejoice in the cross in time of peace only, but hold fast to the same faith in time of persecution also. Do not be a friend of Jesus in time of peace only but also in time of persecution.”