Christian leaders: Pilgrimages must change to help Holy Land peace

(July 21, 2011) Catholic and Anglican leaders have challenged Christians to find new ways to establish lasting peace in the Holy Land, including changing the nature of pilgrimages. International Christian, Jewish and Muslim delegates at the two-day Conference on Christians in the Holy Land, at Lambeth Palace July 18-19, considered concrete steps that might be taken by ordinary people to help to resolve enduring tensions that have forced millions of Palestinian Christians to flee their homeland in the past 50 years. The conference, organized by the Church of England and the Catholic Church in England and Wales, was attended by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The cardinal called for renewed dialogue among followers of the Abrahamic faiths in the region, but he also made a specific plea for the rights of the minority Christians in the Holy Land to be guaranteed and respected. He said Christian communities were not founded by missionaries sent from Rome or Constantinople but by the apostles and were a gift to their societies and they bring cultural openness, a sense of the dignity of the human person and particularly of women. Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said on July 19 that the delegates had looked for a "bit of a step change in Christian involvement here with the situation of Christians in the Holy Land, a step change that will allow us to identify and support specific projects more effectively." Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, expressed that British parishes would be encouraged to work for peace and forgiveness, rooted in justice, for all the people of the region. The plan includes charitable relief work, contact with people in the region and in the Palestinian Diaspora, and the lobbying of politicians to work for change.