JERUSALEM (CNS): The spirit of Easter invites all who live in the Holy Land and are responsible for “making peace and waging war” to “have recourse to new criteria and to a new vision”, Latin rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem said.
“Until now oppression has bred violence, and violence has bred oppression,” he said in his Easter homily at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
“It is imperative that the initial oppression, the occupation and the refusal to recognise each other cease so that we can set out resolutely on the road to peace.”
The Latin rite Patriarchate of Jerusalem includes Israeli and Palestinian Catholics.
Patriarch Sabbah noted that Jews were celebrating their festival of freedom and wondered if Israel would “some day ever have the courage to celebrate Passover by giving freedom to the Palestinian people” as a way of fully recovering its own complete freedom.
The number of visitors to Jerusalem’s Old City also swelled with Jewish pilgrims, who were celebrating the last day of their Passover holiday.
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