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16 February 2006

Holy Land Christians tell Vatican they fear extinction

Michele Green
Jerusalem (ENI). A delegation of Israeli-Arab Christians has been at the Vatican recently to discuss urgent aid for the struggling Christian communities of the Holy Land.

The delegation met earlier in February with members of a Holy See assembly that discusses problems concerning Christians in the Middle East, including Israel, and sometimes approves projects for local communities. The delegates submitted a plan to help revive Christian communities in the Holy Land, whose numbers are dwindling.

The plan includes obtaining more support from Christians abroad, particularly pilgrims visiting holy sites in Israel and the Palestinian territories, as this could alleviate the sense of neglect and isolation felt by the local Christian community.

One of the representatives said it was time for churches abroad to take a more active role to revitalise Christian communities in the Holy Land. "We are a dying congregation," said Dr Raed Mualem, head of the Mar Elias University in the Galilee town of Ibillin.

Mualem told Israel's daily Haaretz newspaper that soon Galilee Christians would be almost "extinct" because the migration rate is 35 per cent. Christians currently comprise about 1.7 per cent of Israel's six million population - or about 110,000 people. But Mualem said that if the high rate of migration continues then the number of Christians living in Israel will drop to less than half of one per cent of the population by 2020.

Around 40 000 Christians live in the Palestinian territories and they are migrating at a rate of about 2000 people a year. Christians who have often been wealthier and more educated then their neighbours have increasingly sought to make a better life for their families abroad rather than live as a small minority caught between the mostly Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian-Muslim populations.

The plan submitted to the Vatican includes calling for more direct support of congregation institutions, private Christian hospitals and schools as well as the establishment of a cultural centre for local Christians and community television and radio stations.

"Projects of this sort ensure a better future not only for Christians but for the entire Israeli Arab population," Mualem said.

© 1994 - 2006 Ecumenical News International.

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