Appreciation of the diversity of the Church

Pope Francis has invited us to set off on a journey, walking together, getting to know one another better, listening to each one. The Church in the Holy Land, battered by so many adverse circumstances, pandemic and violence, despair and isolation, religious radicalism and political intransigeance, has set off as well. At a rousing opening celebration in October 2021, bringing together thousands from many parts of the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa urged: “We must stop complaining that we are too few Christians in the Holy Land, we are enough to change the world if we want to”. Nonetheless, the Church in the Holy Land enters the synodal process hesitantly. Political, socio-economic and cultural-linguistic factors separate Catholics from each other. Catholics belong to a diversity of rites, Greek ...