'We cannot afford the luxury of giving up and stopping; we owe it first and foremost to our local Christians, and to all those who are there; we must do everything possible to bring aid,' said Cardinal Pizzaballa
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(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, echoed Leo XIV’s call for peace rooted in Christ, while urging action for suffering Christians in the Holy Land.
“The answer is peace,” Pizzaballa told the SIR news agency, responding to remarks made during Leo XIV’s Regina Caeli address and the homily at the inauguration of his reign on May 18. But, he clarified, “the peace the world needs is not a political peace or merely the absence of war… [but] the peace that comes from Christ.”
During his inauguration Mass, Leo XIV cited Christ’s words to Peter—“Do you love me?”—as the foundation of unity in the Church and the path to peace. Pizzaballa affirmed this, describing it as “the paradigm of Christian life, whose consequence is precisely peace.”
At the same time, the Patriarch acknowledged the hard realities of the region he serves. “Speaking now of fraternal love is difficult,” he said of Gaza and the Holy Land. “It is something very abstract, far removed from reality.”
Despite the devastation, he insisted that unity must come from faith, not fear. “It is this love,” he said, “that creates unity, that generates ferment even in public life.”
His comments came after Leo XIV appealed for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, where “children, families, and elderly survivors” are starving amid war and blockade.
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Pizzaballa's pastoral directiveIn response, Pizzaballa issued a pastoral directive: “We cannot afford the luxury of giving up and stopping; we owe it first and foremost to our local Christians, and to all those who are there; we must do everything possible to bring aid.”
The message echoes the central themes of Pizzaballa’s leadership in one of the most embattled Christian regions in the world.
In recent months, the Holy Land has seen escalating violence, desecration of churches, and growing anti-Christian hostility. In April 2023, Pizzaballa warned of attacks by Israeli extremists:
The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new. These people feel they are protected… that the cultural and political atmosphere now can justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.
His call for peace and for continuing spiritual and humanitarian aid emphasise that the peace of Christ is “the kind we all need throughout the world, but especially in the Holy Land.”
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