One of the fruits of Paul VI's "pilgrimage" to the Holy Land was a commitment to create realities capable of fostering a dialogue based on knowledge and promoting an ever better understanding of one's own identity precisely in confrontation with other religious traditions, beginning with the different Christian denominations, especially those that enrich the Catholic Church....
On December 4, 1963, in his closing address to the Second Session of the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI announced to the Council Fathers his intention to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land: Paul VI wanted to invite everyone, not only Catholics, to rethink the centrality of the life of Jesus Christ and the birth of the Christian experience for the witness of the Word of God in the world....
We caught up in Bethlehem with Rony Tabash a young entrepreneur who has always lived in the city where Jesus was born. He is a dynamic and enterprising young man, but the Covid and more than a year and a half of no tourists and pilgrims are testing him....
Meeting with Cardinal Mario Zenari apostolic nuncio in Damascus...
"Don't forget Syria" Companies, associations, hospitals. So much concrete help has come from Tuscany for a people who have suffered unspeakable pain but have not lost dignity and hope...
Since the appearance of the first internal clashes, which would degenerate into the civil war, which still bloody Syria, the voices of ecumenical bodies have been raised to condemn all forms of violence, to call for dialogue for peace in justice, to activate all forms of welcome for refugees and to promote solidarity projects in and for Syria....
"The Bus of Hope, before anything else, is a beautiful name for a solidarity project. For so many reasons. In a country like Syria, ravaged by ten years of cruel war, with hundreds of thousands dead and half the population turned into refugees or displaced persons, the bus is a fascinating creature....
"We have to go to Aleppo, to help the boys and girls. We can't leave them alone," Daniela Mori, president of the Il Cuore si scioglie Foundation, established by Unicoop Firenze, a large consumer cooperative, had decided that the cry of pain of the inhabitants of Aleppo, battered by eight years of war, destruction and bombing, could not remain in midair, that cry of pain had to be answered, and answered concretely, not just with words....
The project for children and girls that the John Paul II Foundation has been carrying out since 2019 in Aleppo together with the Franciscans is about helping them overcome the traumas of war and is called "therapeutic art." Thanks to the efforts of the religious of the Custody of the Holy Land, paths have been identified to help children, women, and those who carry within themselves the anguish of the very long conflict....
"We pray that everyone in Syria can share the conviction that military actions cannot bring just peace to the country. Only political and social dialogue can contribute to the development of principles for living together in dignity and equality, respecting the rule of law." Thus, on November 1, 2019, Lutheran Pastor Olav Fyske Tveit, then general secretary of the Ecumenical Council of Churches, expressed the position of the Ecumenical Council on Syria....