Holy Land Solidarity Visit
Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari, CNEWA president, led a delegation on a pastoral visit to the Holy Land, 2-6 September, as a gesture of solidarity with its beleaguered Christian community. The delegation included Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Patrick E. Kelly and John Marella, supreme knight and supreme secretary, respectively, of the Knights of Columbus, and CNEWA’s director of communications and marketing, Michael J. La Civita.
The visit to Jerusalem, the Palestinian West Bank and Israel included liturgies in the churches of the Holy Sepulchre, Nativity and Annunciation, and meetings with leaders of the region’s small Christian community, which has been a leading provider of emergency aid and social services for all communities in the strife-stricken region.
“What you see is that even in a time of great darkness and suffering, the light and the goodness and the glory of Christ shine through in these ministries,” Archbishop Lori said upon his return to Baltimore.
“We found pastors, compelled by the Gospel, to counter hate with love,” Mr. La Civita told America magazine. “We met women and men of faith determined, not despondent, to carry on the work of the church as it witnesses the poor and marginalized.”
The pastoral visit also deepened CNEWA’s partnerships with mission-aligned organizations, including the Sovereign Order of Malta, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, the Knights of Columbus and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. On the ground CNEWA works solely with the local churches, supporting their initiatives and efforts to provide medicine, food, education and psychosocial support.
Aid to Gaza Intensifies
The U.S. Catholic bishops reissued a call to support church-based humanitarian efforts in Gaza after the ceasefire agreement that came into effect on 10 October, directing donors to CNEWA and Catholic Relief Services. The peace agreement was followed by the release of the remaining surviving Israeli hostages by Hamas and 250 Palestinian prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displaced by orders of the Israeli military, returned to the north, most finding their homes reduced to rubble, said Joseph Hazboun, CNEWA’s regional director for Palestine and Israel. CNEWA and its partners were working to help provide shelter, water and medical aid, noting that clearing the rubble to rebuild could take up to three years. To support CNEWA’s work in Gaza, go to www.cnewa.org/donate.
Firsts for Pope Leo’s Papacy
Pope Leo XIV issued his first apostolic exhortation, “Dilexi Te” (“I Have Loved You”), on 9 October. “Love for the poor — whatever the form their poverty may take — is the evangelical hallmark of a church faithful to the heart of God,” he wrote. He said many Christians “need to go back and re-read the Gospel” because they have forgotten that faith and love for the poor go hand in hand.
At the time of publication, Pope Leo was scheduled for his first trip outside Italy with plans to visit Turkey, 27-30 November, and from there to Lebanon until 2 December. The trip was built around the promise of Pope Francis to join Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in marking the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, at which the foundational tenets of Christianity were formulated into what is now the first half of the Nicene Creed, recited by all mainline Christians. In Lebanon, Pope Leo was expected to commemorate the 2020 port explosions in Beirut.
CNEWA Launches Centennial
Catholic Near East Welfare Association kicked off its centennial with two gala events — the first in Ottawa, 7 November, and the second in New York, 1 December. Born as empires crumbled in Europe and the Middle East, CNEWA became an instrument of the Holy See to serve and bolster the Eastern churches in their service to those most in need, especially survivors of war and genocide, revolution and civil war, social chaos and poverty.
A century later, CNEWA continues its service as an agency of healing and hope, working for, through and with the Eastern churches in the Middle East, Northeast Africa, India and Eastern Europe.
Initiatives to mark the centennial will be announced in the new year.
New Eastern Saint, Blessed
This autumn, the universal church recognized two martyrs of the Eastern Catholic churches.
On 19 October, Pope Leo XIV canonized Armenian Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Choukrallah Maloyan in St. Peter’s Square. He served as archbishop of Mardin in Ottoman Turkey from 1911 until his death in June 1915. Arrested by Ottoman authorities during the mass roundup of Armenian and Assyro-Chaldean Christians, recognized today as the Armenian genocide, he refused to renounce his Christian faith and was subsequently tortured and killed.
On 27 September, the Rev. Petro Oros, a priest of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo, was beatified during an outdoor Divine Liturgy in Bilky, Ukraine. Henchmen of the Soviet regime murdered the 36-year-old priest in 1953 as he brought the Eucharist to a sick person.
Grant Monies Received
The generosity of people of good will, with their prayers and financial gifts, brings to life the mission of CNEWA as it witnesses the Gospel in service to the Eastern churches. Thanks to Catholics across the United States, CNEWA has received more than $1.5 million from U.S. parishes and dioceses for its life-saving work in Gaza and the wider Middle East.
In addition to regular sustaining contributions from donors and friends worldwide, CNEWA received several significant grants, including $250,000 from the Knights of Columbus for its efforts in Gaza and the Middle East; $100,000 from the Diocese of Venice in Florida for its work in Ukraine; and $20,000 from the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation for emergency relief in the Holy Land. To learn more about CNEWA’s grant program, contact Bradley Kerr at bkerr@cnewa.org.
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