Bishops from across Europe and North America will meet in the Holy Land over the coming days to promote dialogue and peace, with a pastoral focus on Christians in Gaza, East Jerusalem and Ramallah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This annual visit was set up over 20 years ago at the\ninvitation of the Holy See with the aim of visiting and supporting the Holy\nLand\u2019s local Christian communities as they experience the political and\nsocio-economic realities of living in Israel and Palestine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bishops will be based in Ramallah with an overnight\nvisit to Gaza. This year the HLC20 will celebrate Sunday Mass on 12\nJanuary with the small Christian community in Gaza. This Christmas, the Israeli\ngovernment prevented Gazan Christians from visiting Bethlehem or families and\nrelatives in the West Bank so the bishops were determined to go to Gaza and\nremind the small Christian community that they are not forgotten as Christians\nfrom the bishops\u2019 home countries continue to pray for all Gazans and for an end\nto the conflict. This visible act of solidarity will be followed by a visit to\nthe House of Peace run by the Missionaries of Charity<\/em>; meetings with\nyoung people, visits to Christian parishioners and a pastoral visit to the sick\nin the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The bishops will also meet with young people in both\nJerusalem and Ramallah to listen to their hopes and experiences as they grow up\nin this divided society. Archbishop Pizzaballa, Apostolic Administrator to the\nLatin Patriarchate, and Nuncio Archbishop Girelli will meet with the bishops to\ndiscuss the current situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to planned meetings with Palestinian and\nIsraeli officials, there will also be visits to East Jerusalem and the Comboni\nsisters in Bethany, as well as the school and parish in Ramallah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A communique will be released at the conclusion of this\nyear\u2019s Holy Land Coordination on 16 January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year in support of the local Church the Holy Land Co-ordination 2020 (HLC20) will visit Christians in Gaza, Ramallah and East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[80,120,168,176],"bishop":[],"department":[],"class_list":["post-3138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-land","tag-dialogue","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-peace"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n