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December 4, 2002
Holy Land violence increases while peace groups caution against war
British pilgrims visit holy sites to `support the Holy Land' and its troubled people
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Violence in the Holy Land brought fresh condemnations and prayers for peace, while groups in the United States and Europe continued their protests against a potential U.S.-led war against Iraq.
Pope John Paul II entrusted prayers for peace in the Middle East to the intercession of Blessed John XXIII.
The pope said the Holy Land and other regions of the Middle East are "caught up in a dangerous cycle which seems humanly unstoppable. May God make this vortex of violence stop," the pope said Nov. 21 while addressing members of the Congregation for Eastern Churches at the Vatican.
The pope also invoked the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary on all Catholics in the Middle East, "in particular for those in the Holy Land and in Iraq, who are experiencing difficult moments of great suffering."
A focus of the congregation's meeting was strengthening the Church's pastoral outreach, a process particularly difficult in the Middle East and other areas where Christians are fleeing violence, discrimination and economic stagnation.
That same focus led a group of British pilgrims to visit holy sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank in mid-November.
"Our presence here is to show support of the Holy Land in these difficult times. We are also visiting the holy sites, but more important for us are the people," said Michael Whelan, head of the English and Welsh chapter of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher.
A parish priest in the West Bank village of Taybeh said the Christian community was grateful to receive foreign visitors. "Friends come to visit friends in difficult times, not only during the good times. This is the best sign of solidarity with the small Christian community of the Holy Land," he said.
On Nov. 17, the pope condemned a deadly attack on Israeli soldiers in the biblical city of Hebron and prayed that Israelis and Palestinians find the courage to make peace.
The pope said he was particularly troubled by the attack, which killed 12 Israeli soldiers and security agents who had been protecting Jewish worshippers.
According to reports from Hebron, snipers of the militant Islamic Jihad group launched the attack as Jewish worshippers returned from Sabbath prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site in Hebron revered as the burial place of Abraham.
The attack focused on the soldiers and private security agents that protected the settlers as they walked back to the settlement compound. The presence of more than 400 settlers in Hebron, a West Bank city of more than 100,000 Palestinians, frequently has sparked violence.
In Jerusalem, a suicide bombing of a bus that killed 11 Israelis and injured 48 others resulted in Israeli forces re-entering Bethlehem Nov. 22 in the West Bank and sealing off the Church of the Nativity.
The army retreated to the city's outskirts Nov. 25, but not before preventing St. Catherine's Church, adjacent to the Church of the Nativity, from celebrating its annual parish feast.
According to news reports, Israel arrested more than 30 Palestinians after re-entering Bethlehem. Among those detained was at least one potential suicide bomber, a woman.
Also Nov. 22 in Jenin, West Bank, a British U.N. worker was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper. According to Palestinian reports, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy was fatally shot the same day.
With all the violence, enrollment at the Pontifical Biblical Institute's Jerusalem program dropped by about 70 percent.
Enrollment this year has dropped to seven students, down from the usual group of 20, said Jesuit Father Thomas Fitzpatrick, director of the Jerusalem program. Twelve people enrolled in the program last year, he said.
Meanwhile, protests against a possible war with Iraq continued in the United States and England. In New York, members of the Catholic Worker community, Pax Christi and the War Resisters League continued their weekly vigil in Union Square Park. About 25 people attended a Nov. 23 vigil. The group has been meeting every Saturday since September 2001. The group has collected hundreds of signatures for the Iraq pledge of resistance, a nationwide promise of civil disobedience scheduled for Dec. 10 should tensions between the United States and Iraq continue to escalate, said Melissa Jameson, national office director of the War Resisters League. Several thousand signatures have been collected nationwide, she said. In London, Pax Christi members presented British Prime Minister Tony Blair with 4,000 more signatures to a petition asking him to help prevent suffering and bloodshed in Iraq. The petition already had 5,000 signatures. The group also held a prayer vigil outside the prime minister's residence Nov. 22. Earlier, the director of CAFOD, the British bishops' official overseas aid and development agency, said a war with Iraq would be "devastating for the Iraqi people." "The horrendous burden of 12 years of sanctions and trade embargos has left the people of Iraq highly vulnerable," said Julian Filochowski, who led a delegation from Caritas Internationalis that visited Iraq in October. The bishops of England and Wales said the United States and Britain have a "moral responsibility" to avoid war with Iraq unless there were no other means of disarming the country. "If there is war, as well as military casualties on both sides, thousands of Iraqi civilians will die," the bishops said in a Nov. 15 statement. The bishops said military action should be a last resort.
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