The Holy Land risks losing its Christian population, leaving holy sites without local communities, a Benedictine abbot has warned. Source: UCA News.
In the Holy Land, the Christian population that has borne the brunt of war and economic hardship is slowly diminishing, Benedictine Fr Nikodemus Schnabel said.
Fr Schnabel, abbot of Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion in the heart of Jerusalem and of Tabgha, the community’s priory on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, told national directors and representatives of Aid to the Church in Need his fear is that “Holy Land could become a kind of ‘Christian Disneyland’” where holy places, monks and priests remain while there “may be no Christian families, no young Christians, no ordinary Christian life.”
“If you think this is an Eldorado of Christianity, the reality is different. All Christians together are less than 2 per cent,” he said.
“For us, dreaming of reaching 5 per cent or 6 per cent would already be a lot. If you think of the most secularised regions in Europe – like the Czech Republic or the former East Germany – even there, Christians are many times more numerous than here,” he said.
The Benedictine abbot noted that while there are 13 historic churches, both Catholic and non-Catholic, the diversity presents a paradox, in that the places “where the most important events of our faith occurred risk losing its indigenous population”.
Palestinian Christians in the Latin-rite Church, he noted, face significant hurdles.
Those in Jerusalem have full citizenship but without political rights, while in the West Bank, Christian residents face movement restrictions.
In Gaza, the small community of Catholics is “particularly vulnerable, living under a ‘double occupation’: the external pressure of war and blockade, and the internal oppression of the Hamas regime”.
As the continued conflicts caused a sharp decline in tourism, many Christians who depend on it have no choice but to flee the country in search of employment.
“People leave because they don’t see a future,” the abbot said, adding that even with a concrete future on the horizon, “they often have the feeling that it doesn’t matter whether they are there or not.
“Pray that there is a future for Christians here,” he said.
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Holy Land risks becoming ‘Christian Disneyland,’ warns Benedictine abbot (By Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News via UCA News)
