Custos of the Holyland visits Syria

The Custos surveying damage
in the parish

The Custos of the Holyland, Fr Pierbattista Pizzaballa OFM, paid a visit to war torn Syria and spoke of what he saw in an interview given to the Associazione pro Terra Sancta. He had managed to travel and visit the franciscan friars and the people under the Custody's care in Latakiah, Damascus and Aleppo. Villages further north were inaccessible due to the ongoing war. 

He affirmed the role of the Franciscans in Syria in being with the people, comforting and strengthening their faith in a tragic situation. He recalled the poignant moment when he assisted at the funeral of a catholic woman killed with her 2 sons; in the church were many muslim women weeping and mourning with the catholics. It was a reassuring moment that showed not all muslims are against christians ... that there is still hope in the goodness of humanity.

To the question if the war would end, he responded that it all depends on those who are selling the weapons and those who are providing the rival armies with money to buy these weapons.

The Custos preaching to parishioners

*All your kind gifts to the Franciscans in Syria will go to provide milk, food, clothes, medical care, temporary housing and payment of rent for those whose houses have been destroyed, and payment for escape to safer places.

With 30 euros: food, drinking water and care for infants

With 50 euros: help to maintain a halfway house

With 100 euros: payment of school fees of children in safer places

With 250 euros: to buy medical equipment for the Aleppo Hospital or payment of rent for a catholic family