Conclusive week of the Synod for the Middle East

This is the conclusive week for the Synod for the Middle East, which is also attended by the Custos of the Holy Land and Chairman of ATS pro Terra Sancta, the official NGO of the Custody of the Holy Land, Pierbattista Pizzaballa.

“The Synod cannot bring about immediate concrete operative results. The Synod can give an inspiring document that must then be implemented in the different specific concrete situations,” said the Custos at a press conference in Rome recently, stating that the concrete results will depend on the capacity of the individual Churches to accept and absorb the final lines of the document. “This is also regarding the role of the laity which was greatly discussed this week, and of whom we are becoming increasingly aware.
On the one hand, due to the crisis of vocations, on the other because there is increasing awareness that the laity are taking on an increasingly important and decisive role in the life of the Churches and this will have its effect. The time of the Church is not the time of journalists.”

In this context, the value of communication and the importance of identifying suitable ways and instruments to spread information and news about the Holy Places, on events in the Holy Land and on the life of the Christians that live there is unquestionable.
For some time now, the Custody of the Holy Land has been engaged in spreading and promoting a news bulletin produced in the Holy Land, the Terra Santa News, produced by the Franciscan Media Center, the multimedia centre created by the Custody of the Holy Land to communicate to the whole world the life, needs and hopes of this Land of God and those who live there, as well as the “unique” preciousness of the Holy Places, which the Custody has faithfully protected for over eight centuries.