Annual Good Friday collection to support Christians in Holy Land

March 01, 2012

In an annual appeal for the Catholic churches of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches notes that “every Christian finds himself at home in that city and in that land.”

Each year the Church throughout the world takes up a collection on Good Friday for the support of the churches in the Holy Land. That support, writes Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, is “all the more necessary today, as we share the Holy Father’s preoccupation 'for the people of those countries where hostilities and acts of violence continue, particularly Syria and the Holy Land.’”

"We have the duty to restore the spiritual patrimony which we have received” from the Christian communities that have endured for over 2,000 years in the Holy Land, Cardinal Sandri reasons. At a time when Christians are in severe need, and the emigration of young Christians threatens the future of the Church’s presence in the Holy Land, such support is urgently needed, he says. Cardinal Sandri’s letter requesting support for the Good Friday collection was sent to bishops throughout the world, together with a report from the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land detailing the work that has been done, or is now planned, to restore churches and shrines and encourage Christian pilgrimages.

 

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Further information:

• Solidarity with Christians in the Holy Land (VIS)
• Churches around the world called to give practical help to Holy Land Christians (AsiaNews)