Belonging to This Land is Not a Curse but a Vocation

The following is an interview with Father Francesco Patton, whose mandate as Custos of the Holy Land recently came to an end, following the Pope’s confirmation of the election of Father Francesco Ielpo as his successor, on Tuesday, 24 June. His hope is “to remain in the Holy Land without any leadership position, at the service of the friars, of the local Christians and of the pilgrims”. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The 350 brothers you supported, guided and advised are very saddened by the fact that you will leave your position. But how do you feel about it?

I am a friar minor and I thus think it is important that the service of authority should be experienced in the awareness that in the end it is good to return to the life of a “simple” friar. Saint Francis used to tell his brothers that when one terminates a service of authority, he should be happy because the value of a person does not depend on their position. Allow me to quote the complete Admonition XIX because I completely identify with it: “Blessed is the servant who does not consider himself any better when he is praised and exalted by people than when he is considered worthless, simple and looked down upon, for what a person is before God, that he is and no more. Woe to that religious who has been placed in high position by others and [who] does not want to come down by his own will. Blessed is that servant who is not placed in a high position by his own will and always desired to be under the feet of others”.

In our previous meetings you often said “nothing is as it seems in the Middle East”. Can you tell us what you found to be true and what was hidden to you in these nine years?

Having lived in the Middle East in the last nine years did not make me an expert on the Middle East. It is true that here “nothing is as it seems”, to use the words of Heraclitus, in the sense that on a political level for example, those that seem to be enemies are later found to be in underhanded business together and those that appear to be allies detest each other. But what really struck me about the Middle East is something else, much more positive, and that is the culture of relationships and hospitality. In these years I have become convinced that all the peoples who live around the Mediterranean, irrespective of their language and religion, have two things in common. The first one is the importance they give to interpersonal relationships which is much greater than the importance attributed to rules and procedures (as occurs in non Mediterranean European cultures which tend to make rules and procedures absolute, and perhaps this is why they struggle to understand this part of the world). The second one is that they give importance to eating together which is not just a biological survival function but rather social, and is manifested especially in hospitality.

The Custody is present in the following territories: Jordan, Cyprus, Lebanon, Rhodes, Egypt, Israel and Palestine. Can you share some recollections of these countries and the friars that live there?

For me Jordan is above all Mount Nebo, the place where Moses sees the Promised Land and then dies. It means a place in which we can look at the Earth with detachment and the Heavens from up close. Cyprus for me means the two days I spent with Pope Francis at our convent of the Holy Cross in Nicosia, surrounded by barbed wire and part of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural church that expresses the Pentecostal face of Catholicity. It also means Saint Barnabas who is the most beautiful figure of the disciples narrated in the Acts of the Apostles.

In Syria, my first impact with war, in August 2016, I admired the dedication to the mission of “my” brothers who remained beside the people, without running away and without worrying about themselves, for the many years of the war: pastors, not mercenaries. Lebanon means a people of great culture and dignity where the friars minor were able to engage in dialogue with everyone, with Christians of I don’t know how many denominations, with Shiite Muslims in the south and with Sunni Muslims in the north and with other minorities, putting themselves at the service of everyone in these years of war, economic crises and political instability. Rhodes is a beacon of welcome and dialogue, a door that is always open to all and above all a kind word that recognizes the dignity of each person, even in asylum seekers and refugees. All of this is thanks to a very Mediterranean English friar, John Luke.

Egypt reminds me of the beautiful experience of dialogue we had with the most important Sunni Muslim cultural centre: Al Azhar, in 2019 on the occasion of the eighth centenary of the meeting between Saint Francis of Assisi and the Sultan at Damietta. I cannot separate Israel and Palestine. They are that part of the world in which almost all of the Holy places in our Custody are located and which lets me recognize the profundity of the roots of local Christians who have the DNA of all the peoples the New Testament talks about: Hebrews, Samaritans, Greeks and the pagans of the Decapolis, Romans who arrived there with the courts, Lebanese and Syrians who frequented Galilee of the Gentiles to listen to Jesus and meet him. Israel and Palestine is the land of Jesus, Joseph, Mary and of the Apostles, and every stone, landscape and smell reminds me of the Gospel and allows me to experience the Gospel in a three-dimensional way. It is the land where I could celebrate the pages of the Gospel, each time saying hic, that is here: the Word became flesh, he was born, preached, healed, died and was risen.

Maintaining more than 300 friars, supporting some 50 shrines, managing 17 schools, a theological institute and a Bible faculty, helping Franciscan parishes, promoting many charitable initiatives: How does the Custody of the Holy Land finance itself?

The Custody is supported by the work of the friars, thanks to the Good Friday collect, thanks to the generosity of the pilgrims who visit the shrines (during times of peace), thanks to the generosity of benefactors who help us because they understand the value of our mission, both in a specifically religious context and in a social context, for example through the schools in the Holy Land.

Your mandate coincided with a large part of the Pontificate of Pope Francis... What are your most precious memories of Francis?

The most beautiful memory is of the days I spent with him in Cyprus in December 2021. I remember the simplicity, humility and humanity with which he accepted my request to record a message on my mobile to young people of the Holy Land. And on that occasion he gave us a message of hope, an invitation to lift our heads and believe that on this Holy Land we do not only have a past to remember but also a future to build.

On a personal and human level, what will you take away with you from these nine years as Custos?

I think that I have become a bit more patient on a human level, learning from local Christians that in order to remain here, one must love this land, be resilient and understand that belonging to this land is not a curse but a vocation.

(Roberto Cetera)