Eastern Churches in world’s hotspots
By Laura Ieraci, CNEWA
“Conflict, Crisis and Hope: Eastern Catholics in the World’s Hotspots,” a 75-minute panel on the last day of the conference, cast a spotlight on the efforts and challenges of the Eastern Churches tending to the human and spiritual needs of the people in their care amid the turmoil in Ukraine, Ethiopia and the Holy Land.
Three speakers representing these regions joined the conference via Zoom: Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin of Adigrat, Ethiopia, and Joseph Hazboun, CNEWA-Pontifical Mission’s regional director for Palestine and Israel.
The panel was organized and sponsored by the Catholic Near East Welfare Association to underline the 50th anniversary of its flagship publication, ONE magazine.
Michael La Civita, executive editor and CNEWA’s director of communications, moderated the panel. He opened the discussion by setting the context: “Catholic communities throughout the Middle East, Northeast Africa, India and Eastern Europe—whose peoples are served by Catholic Near East Welfare Association—are at the center of events unfolding there.”
He recalled covering significant historic events in these regions—the fall of communism and the beginnings of a peace process in the Holy Land, for instance—since starting with the magazine in 1989.
“The Eastern Churches were not only directly impacted by these great events but functioned as ‘influencers of the time’ in forging what believers hoped would be a future for the common good for all,” he said. “How naïve we may have been.”
Speaking to conference participants from Lviv, Ukraine, Archbishop Gudziak spoke about the death, displacement, and trauma that have resulted in Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale war in 2022. The archbishop underscored the death of more than 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers and up to 50,000 civilians in areas under Ukrainian control.
“There’s no count in the Russian-occupied area,” he said.
Of the 8 million people who fled Ukraine, 2 million have returned. All 4 million people who are currently internally displaced have been housed “somewhere, by someone.”
“Communities, homes, people share their houses,” he explained.
“In these circumstances, people grow up very quickly,” he said, referring to the impact of the war on the students at Ukrainian Catholic University, which he leads as president. The university received thousands of displaced people, particularly those with disabilities. Several members of the university community—students and alumni—have died on the front line, he added.
“In times of hardship, people come together,” he continued. “The war gives people grace to respond. The Church is there, the bishops are there, the priests are there, the sisters are there, and that is very important. It gives people support.”
He described how monasteries, convents, and other religious houses run by religious orders close to the front lines, have “become hubs for humanitarian aid” that also provide “a spiritual, moral significance.”
“People feel that they have icons of God before them. The Church is there. It’s there where it hurts. It’s there where they’re hungry. It’s there where the bomb alerts are happening, or the bombs are actually falling.
Abune Medhin, who spoke to participants from Rome, described how the priests, religious men and women, and lay workers in his eparchy stayed close to the suffering people during the two-year war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian forces. That conflict, and the humanitarian and environmental disasters that ensued, killed an estimated 600,000 people; up to 5 million people remain displaced.
He described how, for about two years, there were “conflicts, blockages and sieges and absolutely no outlet for communication.”
“Adigrat has been destroyed, dispensed,” he said. “The Catholic Church remained quite strong. All missionaries, my priests, remained in their respective mission points,” and this has helped with the current efforts toward healing, rebuilding and restoration.
The bishop said there was no defense “to help us of any sort.”
“If we survived,” he remarked, it was due to the “sense of solidarity” and the prayers of others, encouraged by Pope Francis.
Foreign media, forbidden entry into Tigray during the war, are still not allowed to enter and report from the region, the bishop said, underlining the important role of Catholic journalism through agencies in the Church network, such as CNEWA, to “present the reality from the ground and then also to give people hope.”
Currently, the Church in Adigrat is accompanying those suffering from the trauma of war and trying to stem the growing problem of emigration, especially among the youth, by providing vocational training opportunities and a means to earn a living and remain in the country, he said.
“We want to be instrumental,” the bishop added about the efforts of his eparchy. “We want to set up our conflict resolution projects into resilience and peace-building institutions. And your media can help us in stabilizing these establishments on the terrain, with research and community development.”
From Jerusalem, Mr. Hazboun said the Church’s ability to respond to the needs in Gaza since the conflict broke between Israel and Hamas in October has been “very challenging.” As of mid-June, however, two Church-run projects in Gaza have managed to provide a steady supply of food and potable water to those in their care.
In the occupied West Bank, a land highly dependent on tourism, the conflict has caused an unemployment crisis, plunging many families in need. Church groups, supported by CNEWA, are working to help these families.
“It is important to realize the reality in which the Church operates in this tiny land, so we can understand the complexities,” he said.
Christians represent less than 1 percent of a population of 14 million in the Holy Land, “yet the contributions of the Church are really considerable.” Currently, Church-run institutions number 298 and serve 2.5 million people.
In response to a question from a journalist, Mr. Hazboun reported that the CNEWA-funded Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza continues to operate “under very harsh conditions, with lack of medical equipment, medical supplies and medicine,” despite being among the first sites hit in Israel’s military response to the deadly Hamas-led incursion into Israel on 7 October.
While several other CNEWA-funded clinics have been destroyed, CNEWA continues to support “a number of medical points” in Gaza, he added.
As the magazine editor, the author spoke about the role of journalism in covering the Eastern Churches with accuracy, context, balance and fairness. Catholic journalism, practiced with integrity, enables Catholics to be informed about their suffering brothers and sisters and to respond through prayer, solidarity and action, she said.
“This type of journalism is at the service of the Church by, what I call ‘activating’ our Catholic social teaching at the ground level with information we need to engage in prayer, solidarity and then in action,” she said. “I’ve come to call it ‘Catholic social teaching journalism.’ ”
“As Catholics, we are concerned about all of humanity and the salvation of the whole world. So, it is incumbent upon us as Catholic journalists, with this view that we have to all of humanity, to bring these stories to our audiences,” she said, “to remind them that this is what it means to be Catholic, too.”
“I also would just add human dignity,” said Mr. La Civita. “It’s probably more pressing today than it was five years ago for us to be really expressing our Catholic identity and having stories … [about] what the Church is experiencing and how the Churches, through leaders such as those gathered here today, are at the forefront of preserving human dignity and issuing that call.”
At the CNEWA-sponsored breakfast before the panel, Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari, CNEWA president, presented Archbishop Gudziak with CNEWA’s Faith & Culture Award for his outstanding work in the defense and promotion of human dignity. The archbishop’s communications director received the award on his behalf.
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