It was after the intervention of the Pope and following tension between Israel and the Vatican that the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pizzaballa was able to enter Gaza to celebrate a mass in the parish of the Holy Family where the a few hundred Gazan Christians. Michel Paul, in Jerusalem, collected the testimony of the Patriarch.
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With our correspondent in Jerusalem, Michael Paul
You are the light of our Church, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa told the Christians of Gaza. This second visit to the Palestinian enclave for the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem since the start of the war brought him, he said, sadness, but also great consolation.
“ What I saw was that the destruction that was already enormous when I visited last May is even more so now. Garbage, sewage, hygiene, smells… The whole context of life is very hard to see. It’s terrible. »
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In his testimony, the representative of the Catholic Church mainly mentions children.
Gaza is still full of children. Children in the streets or what remains of the streets. I mean in the middle of the devastation, the ruins, barefoot. Poor conditions. It’s very hard from a human point of view.
This evening, Cardinal Pizzaballa will celebrate midnight mass in Bethlehem. He calls Christians from all over the world to come on pilgrimage to the holy land.