Bishop Marcuzzo Reports Attacks of Schools and Convents of Catholic Nuns and Priests in Nazareth, Holy Land

Religious schools protest against violence after shooting and attack - Former Patriarchal Vicar Auxiliary Bishop Marcuzzo: Tensions are escalating at worrying speed

Christian church representatives in the Holy Land are trying to calm down and avoid polemics after the recent incidents in Nazareth. The local situation is extremely "tense" due to the dispute over judicial reform in Israel and represents a complete "novelty", reported Auxiliary Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, the former patriarchal vicar of the Latins in Jerusalem, to the News portal "Asianews" (Monday ). Marcuzzo expressed his gratitude that the city's leading imams condemned the attacks on Christian institutions.

According to local church representatives, five masked men armed with sticks tried to force their way into a school run by the Don Bosco Sisters in Nazareth last Thursday. When a nun opened the door for them, she was asked to wish them a happy Ramadan and to convert to Islam. When the nun refused, the attackers are said to have hit the gate with their sticks. They fled when the police were called. A week earlier there had been shots at the school and the convent of the Franciscan nuns. And last Sunday, according to Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Marcuzzo, during Mass an intruder asked a priest to recite the Koran.

The Maronite minister refused to comply, after which the young man began to pray and was eventually persuaded by a group of people approaching him to "stop and go home" to avoid further tension. Marcuzzo emphasized that Christian schools in Nazareth had never been attacked in the recent past. In response to the events, the General Secretariat of Christian Schools in Israel launched a general strike in all institutions in Jesus' hometown on Monday. Discussions on sectarian violence and ways to combat fundamentalism were on the agenda for Tuesday, and a press conference on the topic "No to violence" is to be held on Wednesday.

A statement from the bishops' conference is also expected, it said. The attacks came amid an ongoing climate of high tension surrounding Israel's controversial judicial reform, which has sparked a wave of protests. Added to this are the clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which have recently been fueled by a series of provocative gestures, as well as attacks by Jewish extremists on places of worship and Christian centres. In recent weeks, for example, a Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem has been desecrated, a Maronite church devastated and an Orthodox priest attacked with an iron bar near the so-called Marian Tomb in the Kidron Valley.

In view of the frequent cases of intolerance against Christians, the former patriarchal vicar highlighted the attitude of two key imams of Nazareth, who had strongly condemned the incidents. The Muslim attacks are "mostly young people who, perhaps driven by too much enthusiasm, want to make gestures of 'apostolic zeal' on the occasion of Ramadan," said Auxiliary Bishop Marcuzzo. Israel is currently experiencing an "escalation of tensions that is surprising because of its speed." Even if this development has not claimed any fatalities on the Christian side, at least for the moment, concerns about it remain.

See Also: https://www.abouna.org/ - https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Nazareth,-Msgr.-Marcuzzo:-Shocked-by-attacks-on-Christian-schools.-Chaos-in-Israel-worrying-58053.html

Image: ISRAEL, Nazareth Catholic Church Annunciation (the Cross of Jerusalem) By Britchi Mirela - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43566833