Building hope in the Holy Land: Franciscan speaks on the needs of Palestinian Christians

By Sean Gallagher

Franciscan Father Peter Vasko, president of the Washington, D.C., and Jerusalem-based Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land (FFHL), recently visited Indianapolis to speak to people about the plight of Christians living in the Holy Land and to elicit help for them.

He has been traveling in the United States for several weeks and will return to Jerusalem at the end of the month.

Shortly before he left, Palestinian elections in Gaza and the West Bank put Hamas, known in part for its support of Islamic militants, into power in the Palestinian parliament.

Father Peter said that the election results were unexpected.

“Even the Hamas people were surprised,” he said.

Initial reaction to the election among the nearly 150,000 Christians living in the Holy Land focused on their concern that a Hamas-led parliament would impose a Sharia legal code—a strictly Islamic law—on the territories under the control of the Palestinian authority.

However, Father Peter noted that Palestinian society is largely secular, and two weeks ago the leaders of Hamas declared that there would be no Sharia.

He said, however, that there still may be trouble on the horizon for Palestinians, including Palestinian Christians, since Hamas still officially opposes the existence of the state of Israel. This policy might lead the United States and other Western countries to cut off aid to the Palestinian authority.

“Obviously, Hamas has to take out from their charter the [call for] the destruction of Israel,” Father Peter said. “The problem right now is [determining] how to help the Palestinian people and not necessarily the Palestinian Authority.

“You can use NGOs [non-governmental organizations]. But if you have a million kids out of school because there are no teachers, if you have [places] where there are no hospital personnel being paid or social workers, we have a big problem on our hands.”

But even though the leaders of Hamas have said that Sharia will not be imposed, Father Peter said that Palestinian Christians continue to feel pressured by their Muslim compatriots.

He said that in the last four months some misunderstandings have led Palestinian Muslims to set fire to the homes of many Christians in two villages in the northern part of the West Bank.

“The destruction caused a lot of ill feeling in the Christians dealing with these militant Muslims,” Father Peter said.

He went on to say that despite the fact that many Christian and Muslim Palestinians live and work well together, Christians in the Holy Land still have a general “mistrust” for the Muslims there.

Shortly before Father Peter returns at the end of March, Israeli national elections will occur.

However, he sees little prospect for real progress in Israeli-Palestinian relations no matter what party is put into power because, in his opinion, the top priority of any Israeli government will be to keep as much territory as it can.

“The mentality is still the same,” Father Peter said. “Keep the Palestinians demographically away from us. Make sure we have as much territory as possible. And we’ll surround them with the wall and with military and settlements. And they can’t really move back and forth.”

But even in the midst of pressure from Palestinian Muslims and a lack of cooperation from Israel, St. Luke parishioner Richard Sontag of Indianapolis, the FFHL’s director of public relations, said the existence of Christians in the Holy Land is important for the region.

Describing them as the “glue that holds everything together,” Sontag referred to a March 3 incident at the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth to show how Christians there are peacemakers.

While Christians in the church were praying the Stations of the Cross, an Israiel family entered and set off firecrackers.The incident sparked protests in Nazareth.

The father, mother and a 20-year-old member of the family were arrested and jailed.

But Franciscan Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the leader of the Franciscans in the Holy Land, visited the family in jail to show them he forgave them, and called for Christians in the area to do the same.

Over the last eight years, the FFHL has taken a three-pronged approach to preserving the Christian presence in the Holy Land.

It has awarded 86 scholarships to Palestinian Christians, allowing them to get a college education in the region.

Forty of these students have graduated, with 65 percent of them serving in the area in a variety of professional fields. Much of the remaining 35 percent are composed of women who have since married and chosen to be stay-at-home mothers.

In addition to education and employment, the foundation also works to supply adequate housing for Palestinian Christians.

Father Peter said that securing these three things is vital to helping Palestinian Christians remain in their ancestral home.

“We’re trying to provide humanitarian services that our people do not have, that other people, such as the Israelis and the Muslims, have,” he said. “We’re trying to provide the basic need of an education to those who are academically inclined, to find jobs for these young people, and to build housing for them.”

Many people in Indiana have supported the ministry of the FFHL. In 2005, Indiana ranked fourth among all states in the amount of money contributed to the organization.

St. Luke parishioner Mike Hirsch of Indianapolis is the foundation’s regional representative. And Sontag, as mentioned, is its director of public relations.

Sontag credited the strong support in Indiana for the foundation to the impact that pilgrimages to the Holy Land have had on many people in the state.

“When you come back, you’re not the same person,” he said. “God has touched you in such a way that you want to get involved.”

Father Peter, who frequently serves as the guide for the many pilgrimages the foundation organizes, said these trips also have a positive impact for Christians in the Holy Land.

“Pilgrimages will give our people the moral support that they need at this particular time,” he said. “There’s a sense of compassion. Pilgrimages are very, very important.”

Addressing the concern that many have regarding the safety of Holy Land pilgrimages, Father Peter said that no pilgrim has been hurt or killed in any group that he has led over the past 21 years.

But in addition to going on pilgrimages or contributing financially to the ministry of the FFHL, Father Peter also encouraged people to pray for Christians in the Holy Land, especially as Holy Week approaches, that time when the Church celebrates Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

“One of the basic devotions that brings you [there] in this season of Lent is the Stations of the Cross,” Father Peter said. “Offering up the Stations of the Cross for the sufferings of fellow Christians [there], asking the Lord to give them hope, is very realistic. It happened in Jerusalem.”

(To learn more about the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land, call 866-905-3787 or log on to www.ffhl.org.) †