The annual collection to support the work of Franciscans in the Holy Land will be taken up in all parishes worldwide on Good Friday.
The annual collection – taken up this year on Good Friday, April 15 – helps the Franciscans minister to pilgrims at holy sites and provide other services to Christians living there.
Because of COVID-19 restrictions during the past two years, international pilgrimages to the Holy Land were seriously curtailed. Since pilgrim offerings at Franciscan-maintained shrines, purchases at souvenir shops and pilgrim stays in Franciscan guesthouses are important sources of funding, the lack of pilgrims has affected the Franciscan budget.
“With difficulty, we have tried to support materially the weakest communities: the community of Bethlehem and that of Jerusalem, with no more pilgrims and no work; the communities of Lebanon, devastated by an increasingly economic and political crisis; those of Syria, which remains like a prisoner of a war that seems to never end,” said Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, custos of the Holy Land.
Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory has asked Catholics to support this year’s Good Friday Collection to aid Christians in the Holy Land
“Without pilgrims for the past two years, our sisters and brothers in the Holy Land have particularly suffered,” Cardinal Gregory said. “What’s at stake is not only the dwindling number of Christians in the Holy Land, but also the preservation of the very places made holy by the life, death, and resurrection of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.”
In addition to staffing sacred sites in the Holy Land, Franciscans serve in 29 parishes there.
Since 1974, the Church has taken up a collection to aid the Church and Christian people in the Holy Land that is jointly administered by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Eastern Churches and the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. The monies collected in the annual appeal support seminarians and priests in the Holy Land; offer pastoral, charitable, educational, and social assistance to Christians there; and maintain the sacred sites in the region.
To support the Good Friday Holy Land collection, donate on Good Friday at your local parish. To donate on line, visit https://myfranciscan.org/donation-page-pontifical-good-friday-collection.
