(Diakonos.be. Sandro Magister).
Thursday, May 16, two days after Settimo Cielo echoed the extraordinary “lectio” he held in Rome on what the Church can do in the midst of the endless war between Israel and the Palestinians, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, with the authorization of Israel and using a secret passage, went in person to Gaza , in the company of the Grand Hospitaller of the Order of Malta, to bring help and comfort to the few hundred Christians remaining in the city (photo). He found Gaza in a state of destruction – he said – such as he had only seen before in 2014 in Aleppo, Syria.
And that same May 16, in a perfect coincidence, the Israeli Jesuit David Neuhaus, a great expert on dialogue between Jews and Christians, declared on the front page of the latest issue of “ La Civiltà Cattolica ” that Patriarch Pizzaballa was the man of the Church who was more able than anyone to reestablish positive relations between Christians and “our fathers in the faith,” as Benedict XVI liked to call the Jews, rather than our “big brothers.” “Bishop Pizzaballa speaks Hebrew and has long been engaged in dialogue between Jews and Christians and his appointment as patriarch was welcomed by the Israelis as a positive step forward,” notes Father Neuhaus on the first page of his editorial.