Good Friday Special Collection

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Iraqi and Syrian refugees who have fled persecution in their homelands and the Palestinian Christians struggling to survive in the land of Jesus deserve the prayers and material support of Catholics around the globe, a Vatican official said recently.

Catholics can “become promoters of dialogue through peace, prayer and sharing of burdens” with Middle East Christians, said Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches.

In a letter sent to bishops around the world, Cardinal Sandri asked for continued support for the traditional Good Friday collection for the Holy Land. Sixty-five percent of the funds raised go to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, an administratively autonomous province of the Franciscan order. The Franciscan Custody is responsible for most of the shrines connected with the life of Jesus as well as for providing pastoral care to the region’s Catholics, running schools, operating charitable institutions and training future priests and religious.

The collection, taken up at the request of the pope, is administered by the Franciscan Custody and the Congregation for Eastern Churches. The congregation monitors how all funds are used, both the 65 percent directed to the Franciscan Custody and the 35 percent used to support projects chosen by the congregation elsewhere in the Holy Land, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Turkey, Iran and Iraq.

Along with Cardinal Sandri’s letter, the Vatican press has provided some details of how the 2014 collection was disbursed. It said close to $2.5 million was used to provide emergency assistance to people in Iraq and Syria; just over $2.6 million was used to support Catholic education at every level; and about $2.4 million went to a variety of small programs, including support for the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land.