Raising funds for Holy Land on behalf of “Refugees, displaced persons, the elderly, children, and the sick” who “are all in need of our help”
Raised funds will finance the upkeep of holy sites in the Holy Land, as well as pay for educational activities, housing for young couples, and aid for Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Card Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, has sent a letter to the bishops of the world, appealing for aid to the Church in the Holy Land.
Funds raised on Good Friday are needed for the upkeep of local shrines and for pastoral, educational, welfare, health, and social activities that allow parishes to operate, and provide support to educational facilities, financial aid to young families, and help for Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
“In this Jubilee year,” the letter says, “we are urged more than ever to demonstrate our mercy and solicitude for our brothers in the Middle East. Refugees, displaced persons, the elderly, children, and the sick are all in need of our help.
“In this land of the East, people are dying, being kidnapped and even killed. Many live in agony for their loved ones, or suffer when the family is divided on account of forced migration and exodus. They know the darkness and fear of neglect, of loneliness, of misunderstanding. It is a time of trials and challenges, even of martyrdom.
“All this necessarily augments our obligation to help, to respond to emergencies, to reconstruct and to invent new ways of meeting the whole gamut of needs.”
All the funds that will be raised will go to Jerusalem, Palestine and Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Turkey, Iran and Iraq.
They include US$ 2.6 million for Bethlehem University and schools whose purpose is to improve educational achievements through local parishes.
They will also support seminaries, religious schools, and cultural organisations in the aforementioned areas.
Seminarians, priests, men and women religious studying in Rome will also benefit from scholarships (to pay for tuition fees, room and board, and health insurance). The same goes for some lay people from the region who will come back to teach.
Last year, US$ 1,204,171 were allocated for Syria and Iraq, especially for refugees from these countries living in Jordan and Lebanon.
A report from the Custody of the Holy Land Custody details a long series of steps undertaken for the conservation and revitalisation of Christian holy sites in the land of Jesus and across the Middle East.
“Among the various objectives of the Franciscan mission,” the report mentions “the support and the progress of the Christian presence in the conservation and development of the archaeological sites and shrines, the interventions in cases of emergencies, the liturgy in the places of cult, the apostolic works and the assistance of pilgrims.”
Money will also go for the installation of new illumination and audio facilities at the Gethsemane Church, new illumination for processions, along the boundary wall of the friary at Nazareth’s Basilica of the Annunciation, funds for 390 four-year scholarships divided between universities in Bethlehem, Jerusalem (Hebrew), Haifa, Bir Zeit, Amman and elsewhere. Subsidies will be also provided to 178 needy students.
Last but not least, money will also be used to provide help to ten craft businesses, ceramics labs in Bethlehem, and housing for young couples in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Nazareth.
.png)
