Aid to the Church in Need: Holy land: Gaza's only priest gives bleak assessment as he retires

Holy land: Gaza's only priest gives bleak assessment as he retires

Posted by Press Release on 1/5/2009, 12:19 pm
Message modified by board administrator 1/5/2009, 12:50 pm

ACN News, Friday, 1st May 2009 – HOLY LAND

14 years of “deeper and deeper destruction”

Gaza priest gives bleak assessment as he goes into retirement

By John Pontifex

ON the eve of the Pope’s visit to the Middle East, Gaza’s only Catholic priest has given a damning indictment of the situation facing the people in the beleaguered Palestinian territory – especially Christians.
Speaking on Thursday, 30th April just 24 hours before he was due to retire from Gaza after 14 years as parish priest, Monsignor Manuel Musallam told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that the humanitarian situation had declined drastically during his time there.
Thanking ACN for its emergency aid given during a wave of violence in Gaza in January, he said his poverty-stricken community felt strengthened by the support from outside.
But in his interview with the Catholic charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, he stressed that Gaza’s 5,000-strong Christian community were increasingly desperate to leave the region in search of a better future abroad.
His comments will underline the call to do more to arrest the Christian exodus from the Middle East, which is expected to be a major theme of Pope Benedict XVI’s week-long visit to Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, due to start on Friday, 8th May.
Mgr Musallam emphasised the impact of January’s three-week Israeli military campaign against Gaza, which left more than 1,100 dead, 400,000 people without running water and thousands of homes damaged and destroyed. 13 Israelis died in rocket attacks from Gaza.
He said that the conflict was just part of a cycle of decline spanning his 14 years as parish priest in Gaza.

Monsignor Manuel Musallam (front right) standing next to Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem (Photo: CBCEW – www.catholicchurch.org.uk)

The Gaza Strip’s population of 1.5 million – half of whom are children – have faced an increasingly serious humanitarian disaster according to the United Nations and leading aid agencies.
Mgr Musallam said: “The destruction has become deeper and deeper. Things are getting worse and worse. Many, many families are suffering.
“People cannot receive electricity all the time because there is a lack of fuel to run the generators. There is a shortage of clean water, sanity is poor. Education and medical care is also not good.
“Our precious trees have been uprooted. Our buildings have been destroyed. Our streets have been destroyed. Our land has been burnt by bombs and so we cannot produce anything. We are just consumers now. The machines and cars are old. Everything needs to be renewed.”
He underlined the effect of the suffering on the people’s psyche. He said: “The people are more aggressive. There is a lot more hate towards the situation they are in – especially among the young.”
But he said the $40,000 given by ACN as an emergency payment in early January had shown people “another way” towards hope.
The aid, administered by Mgr Musallam himself, was used to provide essential food and other supplies to some of the neediest families in Gaza City.
“We admire very much the solidarity shown towards the people of this land. The friendship between Christians elsewhere in the world and here is very strong. We hope this link will continue for a long time.
“The support and love shown to the people of Palestine will continue to encourage them to bear witness to Christ. We hope this will encourage them not to emigrate.”
Mgr Musallam, 71, who will join family and friends in retirement in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said he had great confidence in Fr George Hermandes, a native of Argentina, who takes over as parish priest of Gaza City
“I am leaving this place for ever. I am not anxious or sad. I have completed my job and my successor is in place.”
Fr Humam Khzouz, chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the diocese that covers Gaza, paid tribute to Mgr Musallam and his ministry in Gaza.
He said “Fr Musallam has done great work over the many years he has been in Gaza where he has given a lot to support the Christian community and many others.”

Editor’s notes

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.
Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.
The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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