Christians Caught in Gaza Crossfire

On Sunday, during his Angelus message, Pope Benedict XVI invoked the memory of St. Francis of Assisi, a great man of peace. As fighting continued between Palestinian Muslim factions in the Gaza Strip, the Pope recalled the special devotion that St. Francis and his followers have to the Holy Land--a devotion that continues down to this day, when the Franciscans still act as caretakers for a number of Christian holy places there. "May weapons be silenced and may hate yield to love, offense to pardon, and discord to unity," he said, in remarks reported by the Indian Catholic. "Our thoughts are directed in particular to the Holy Land, a place so loved by St. Francis, to Iraq, Lebanon and all the Middle East."

The latest round of fighting has threatened the dwindling Christian minority in the Palestinian territories. As Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, June 14, "A school and convent belonging to the Gaza Strip's tiny Roman Catholic community were ransacked, burned, and looted during clashes around a major security headquarters," the New York Sun reported. "Crosses were broken, a statue of Jesus was damaged, and prayer books were burnt at the Rosary Sisters School and nearby convent, said Father Manuel Musallem, head of Gaza's Latin church."

Because the struggle in the Holy Land is often presented as between the state of Israel and Muslim Palestinians, many Americans are unaware of the continuing, though declining, Christian presence there. Catholics, Orthodox, and Lutherans, in particular, continue to try to keep Christianity alive in the lands where Jesus Christ walked, but the task, as Pope Benedict has sadly noted, is made very hard by the "apparently unstoppable violence."