Cardinal encourages generosity in Good Friday collection for Holy Land

(March,26,2009): Cardinal Leonardo Sandri the Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, has appealed to Bishops around the world, to encourage parishes in their dioceses, to support the collection which is traditionally taken up during Good Friday services. He said the Catholic Church's annual Collection for the Holy Land, helps maintain Christian sites in the region, provides care for aged religious, who spent their lives ministering in the land of Jesus, and supports projects that help native Christians remain and thrive in the region..
“The Catholic communities in the Holy Land face serious problems, the first is the absence of peace," the cardinal said in his letter, which was published in the March 25 edition of L'Osservatore Romano,the Vatican newspaper. "The open wound caused by the violence, worsens the problem of emigration and the land that was the cradle of Christianity risks ending up without Christians," the cardinal wrote. Pope Benedict XVI is among the first to constantly comfort the Christians, and all inhabitants of the Holy Land with words and gestures of extraordinary care," the cardinal said, “and his desire to go on pilgrimage in the footsteps of Jesus, is a clear sign of how important the Holy Land is to the church”.