Arab Prelate Says It's Time to Break Through and Communicate
By Pietro Gennarini
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 15, 2012 (Zenit.org).-"The
new evangelization, in order to be modern and effective, must start
from Jerusalem,” stated his His Beatitude Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch of
Jerusalem and President of the Conference of Latin Bishops in the
Arabic Regions (CELRA) as he addressed the Synod of Bishops on Saturday
at the Vatican.
Patriarch Twal, who was ordained in Rome, was the first Arab to serve
as bishop of an African country, Tunisia. He was named Latin Patriarch
of Jerusalem by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.
In his intervention, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem stated that it
is through reviving the faith that the place which has been the cauldron
of so many wars may turn into a melting pot. While faith has erected
the wall separating people for so long, it must now become the channel
through which they may meet.
Given the recent hardships, where the holy sites have been desecrated
or assaulted, the Patriarch stressed the need for the local faithful to
put aside the “negative mentality that regards faith as belonging to a
sociological faction leading to militancy and violence”. He also
stressed visits to holy sites on the trail of the Bible by pilgrims,
allows them to become a “true testimony of faith and communion with our
Church of the Calvary”. By encountering the person of Jesus Christ, the
believers of weak faith may be strengthened and those in whom faith has
died may experience its rebirth.
The Arab prelate stated that such pilgrimages will be an enormous
help to the community of the Holy Land, who has closed in on itself in
fear so as to defend its rights and reduced faith to a “hereditary
fact”, instead of a personal and committed one.
“It is not about survival, but about breaking through and communicating” said the bishop.
The Latin Patriarch strongly invited his brothers in the episcopate
along with their flocks to visit the Holy Land and asked for their
prayers and solidarity.
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