Franciscan leader fears growing religious tensions in Israeli-Palestinian conflict
December 02, 2014
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is taking on unsettling religious overtones, reports the head of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.
In a conversation with Aid to the Church in Need, Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa said that Jewish religious parties in Israel and Islamist factions in Palestine are doing their best to portray the old struggle in religious terms, and to convince people that patriotism must necessarily mean being a devout Jew or Muslim.
“ Religion has always been part of the problem,” Father Pizzaballa said. “But now there is the risk that the religious dimension will become pre-eminent.”
“Here in the Holy Land, we Christians are irrelevant,” the Franciscan Custos lamented. “There are too few of us.” Christians cannot begin building bridges, he said, because they are divided among themselves, along confessional lines. To illustrate he pointed to the ugly disputes among Christian denominations about control of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Still, he said, Christians can work to provide opportunities for dialogue between religious groups.
The Christians living in the Holy Land are tempted to emigrate for a number of reasons, the Franciscan leader said. The rise of the Islamic State has dramatically increased the level of concern about the future of the Christian minority in the Middle East.
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