ECUMENICAL GATHERING FEARS POSSIBILITY OF

A “SPIRITUAL DISNEYLAND” IN THE HOLY LAND

            Top Catholic and Anglican leaders launched a new effort to support the dwindling population of Christians in the Holy Land with an historic gathering at London’s Lambeth Palace recently.  Entitled “Conference on Christians in the Holy Land,” the July 18-19 meeting, with some 90 representatives from Europe, North America, and the Middle East in attendance, was co-hosted by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, and by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Most Rev. Vincent Nichols.

            Archbishop Williams, head of the world-wide Anglican Communion, said that the purpose of the gathering, which heard from a variety of voices, including a delegation from Bethlehem University as well as Muslim and Jewish participants, was to raise a “literate, compassionate awareness” of the Holy Land’s Christian plight, and to galvanize action.

            Noting that the Christian presence in Israel and the Palestinian Territories has shrunk to less than 2% of the total population, His Beatitude Fouad Twal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and Grand Prior of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, reminded the assembly that the Holy Land could become a “Spiritual Disneyland,” full of glittering rides and attractions, but empty of its indigenous Christian population.

            Echoing that sentiment, French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for Interreligious Dialogue, offered that Christian centers of the Holy Land could become “archeological and historical sites, to be visited like the Coliseum in Rome – museums with entrance tickets, and guides who explain the beautiful legends.”

            According to reports from PBS, America’s Public Broadcasting Service, conference speakers presented ways to offer assistance to the predominantly Palestinian Christian community.  Those included financial support, building more relationships between congregations, and increasing public policy advocacy.  As part of that effort, there was a call for an end to security restrictions that prevent local people of faith from visiting their holy sites. 

Various Internet sources cited a general consensus that working for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be the biggest help of all in resolving the problems of Christians caught in the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

According to PBS, the Most Rev. Sir Gerald F. Kicanas, KC*HS, bishop of the Tucson, Arizona, diocese, commented, “Ultimately, what we need is a two-state solution where these two people can live together in peace, each in their own sovereign states, respecting the boundaries and respecting the rights of those states.” 

Tucson’s Bishop Kicanas and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired Archbishop of Washington D.C., were the American prelates at the gathering.

Conference participants were reminded that the reason for deep concern about Christians in the Holy Land boiled down to two points: First, their survival is critical to Christianity’s identity.  And second, it’s a key to peace in the region, and therefore to peace in the world.  “Now,” said one observer, “the challenge is to turn talk into action.”

The importance of the Lambeth conference having been jointly hosted by leaders of both Anglican and Roman Catholic faith communities has not been lost on Rt. Rev. Sir Alexei R. Smith, KCHS, Director of the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Says Fr. Smith, “In the era of the ever expanding fissure between the Anglican and Catholic Churches over such issues as the ordination of women, same sex marriages, and the establishment of Personal Ordinariates for those Anglicans who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church, the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster served not only as co-conveners and organizers of this conference, but actually and genuinely presided over it as well.

“Sensitive to the possibility that this conference be dismissed as ‘anti-Israel,’” Fr. Smith continues, “the two churchmen invited Jewish leaders – including an Orthodox Rabbi from the Old City of Jerusalem – to address the delegates.  And at the joint press conference at the conclusion of the gathering, they presented a common reflection and a common plan of action.”

Fr. Smith also notes that Catholic Archbishop Nichols of Westminster described the conference as an “important step forward in collaboration between the Catholic and Anglican Churches.”  Fr. Smith adds that this statement testifies “to the fact that theological differences must not impede these two churches from working together for the common good – in this case the welfare of the Christian community in the Holy Land – and that it is possible to do so in an amicable manner.”

                                                                                              – Sir Norm Anderson, KC*HS