In Jerusalem, French bishops urge pilgrims to return to Holy Land

A senior French bishop calls for pilgrims to visit the Holy Land to show solidarity with struggling Christian communities in the region.

Pilgrims “should not only come here to deepen their faith and take some photos… but also to take an interest in the Christians and the other people who live here,” Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, president of the French Bishops’ Conference, tells reporters in Jerusalem.

The archbishop of the southern French city of Marseille makes his appeal at the end of a five-day solidarity visit to the Holy Land, accompanied by two other prelates from the French Bishops’ conference.

On Monday, the delegation visited Bethlehem, a town in the West Bank revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus but which has been largely abandoned by foreign visitors since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

“When we went to the Nativity Church, we were the only visitors there,” Aveline notes.

Speaking about holy sites within Israel and East Jerusalem, he said that Christians “should understand that there are Christians in this land who cannot make the same pilgrimage, because they are not granted permits to move from one area to the other.”

Christian Palestinians from the Israeli-controlled West Bank require authorization from Israeli security forces to visit holy sites within Israel and East Jerusalem.

On Sunday, the cardinal celebrated mass in Taybeh, a Christian village in the West Bank that has faced repeated assaults by Israeli settlers in recent months.

In early July, the village was hit by an arson attack in the area of the ruins of a Byzantine-era church.

The cardinal also addresses relations between Christians and Jews, saying that “our bonds with the Jews are unbreakable” and warning against the “alarming rise of antisemitism in Europe.”

But he also laments that “every criticism of the State of Israel is immediately portrayed as antisemitism.”

“Therefore, we need dialogue, and the… will to tell the truth without harming anyone’s dignity,” he adds.

Aveline says that he spoke with Father Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest of the Holy Family Catholic church in Gaza — the territory’s only Catholic church, which was damaged in a deadly Israeli strike last month.

Romanelli was lightly injured in the strike.

“He described the situation there as very uncertain,” Aveline recalls, “but I was very impressed with his inner strength.”