‘I feel I am living at the centre of the world’
The Franciscan priest tells Mark Greaves why he fell in love with the Holy Land
25 April 2008

Fr Pizzaballa, pictured in Jerusalem: 'Our faith in Jesus does not only come from within; there's something concrete you can touch'

When I first see Fr Pierbattista Pizzaballa in the crypt of Westminster Cathedral he is impassive, withdrawn and, in a way, terrifying. He also looks extremely weary. He was appointed custodian of the Holy Land four years ago and since then, he says, he has had "no private life". His trip to London is essentially a press junket, although an extremely important one: to ask Catholics in Britain for their help in supporting the tiny Christian minority in the Holy Land. Without that help, he says, the dwindling Christian presence could disappear.

Fr Pizzaballa was only 39 when he was elected custodian and put in charge of the 303 Franciscan friars working in Israel and Palestine. He was astonished, he says, because normally someone his age would never be considered for the role. Not only that, but - back when he was a 26-year-old friar in northern Italy - he never actually wanted to go to the Holy Land in the first place. "I thought the life of the Franciscans there was strange - like living in a museum. Pilgrims come to visit and you see them go, and no one needs you," he explains. "But I was wrong."

Fr Pizzaballa speaks quietly but with great gentleness and warmth; his severity, although initially quite daunting, evaporates as soon as our conversation begins.

His first year in the Holy Land, he explains, was depressing. He arrived in 1990 in the middle of the first intifada, when Palestinians were protesting against Israeli rule. A curfew was imposed almost every day and the holy places were empty of pilgrims. "You feel useless," says Fr Pizzaballa. "There was nothing for me to do. I just sat there without any enthusiasm."

He explains that he found it hard to adjust to a society that did not care what he did. In Italy, he says, "you are in the middle of society - a lot of people come to you", but in the Holy Land "no one is looking for you".

"Jews and Muslims don't care if you pray or don't pray. You feel, why am I here?"

The solitude was important, though: it led him to discover that "doing is not the first thing". He explains: "I came to understand that the first vocation is to be with the Lord." He had always felt a need to do things for other people, to be useful, but he learnt in his solitude that simply "to be a presence and to pray" could be useful for God.

Fr Pizzaballa's feelings toward the Holy Land have changed profoundly over the last 18 years. It is inspiring, in fact, to hear him talk about it. He says he feels as if he lives "at the heart of the world". In Jerusalem, he explains, all kinds of people have come together from all over the world. "Everyone wants to be there," he says. "It's beautiful."

Interestingly, his time in the Holy Land has had a dramatic effect on the way he perceives the physical world. Before, he says, he had a habit of separating spiritual life from material things. In the Holy Land, though, he discovered that "our relationship with God, with Jesus, with the Gospel, does not only come from within; there's something concrete you can touch: this world comes to you".

He explains: "My faith is not to believe in a series of dogmas. My faith is first of all Jesus, and Jesus was born here. My faith is inculturated on this land, and so to be there and to touch, and to see many other cultures go there and touch, to have the same experience, is very powerful for me."

The incredible variety of people and cultures can itself be a bit of a headache, Fr Pizzaballa says. Not only are there Jews, Muslims and Christians, but there are also Christians of every denomination and Catholics of all rites and nationalities. Fr Pizzaballa says that one of the hardest parts of his role - among many other hard parts - is to maintain good relations with all the different groups.

Fr Pizzaballa asks whether I've ever been to the Holy Land; when I say I haven't, he tells me "shame on you". The purpose of his visit to London is not only to appeal for financial help but also to encourage English Catholics to visit the Holy Land. The closeness that many Catholics in Britain feel towards the Holy Land is crucial for the Christian community there because, behind America, Britain is its biggest source of outside funding.

He is here as a patron of the Terra Sancta Education Trust, a London-based charity which pays for poor Christian children to attend Franciscan schools. Fr Pizzaballa explains that this education is necessary for the Christian community to survive. The number of Christians has been declining for decades and now only represents one per cent of the population of Israel and Palestine; in order to resist the dominant culture, says Fr Pizzaballa, "you have to feel a vocation to be Christian".

One of the main reasons for this decline is a lack of job prospects: in Bethlehem, for instance, unemployment is almost 50 per cent. Another factor is that Christians are almost entirely excluded from public life. It is very difficult, according to Fr Pizzaballa, to find any Christians at all in positions of public responsibility. In Israel, they are "totally ignored"; in the Palestinian territories the increasingly Islamic nature of the political movements means there is, similarly, no place for Christians.

Perhaps even more important is the harassment that Christians face. Here, Fr Pizzaballa speaks much more cautiously. "This is a very delicate problem because it can be manipulated and misused for political [reasons]," he says. "But the problem exists. For instance in Gaza, Christians have been killed; churches have been destroyed more than once. It becomes very difficult to defend - to maintain, not to defend - the Christian identity of the holy places." (His correction is telling and seems to highlight how carefully he has to approach the issue.) He adds: "Some parts of the population think that the Christians are not a part of the life of the country."

Fr Pizzaballa explains that violence against Christians can be provoked not only by very local issues - the discovery of an illicit relationship between a Christian and a Muslim, for instance - but also by international politics. He makes it clear that relations have been damaged by the Iraq war and by "western policies towards Muslims" in general. He also speaks, however, of the danger of seeing every kind of violence or harassment against Christians as the result of religious hostility.

When Fr Pizzaballa was first appointed custodian in 2004 he "wanted to do too many things". He was, he says, "like all young people who want to change the world". It is not difficult to detect a note of weariness in these words. In 2010 Fr Pizzaballa will no longer be custodian; the position is assigned to a new friar every six years. He says he has "no idea" what he would like to do next - and at any rate the new custodian decides for him - but it seems likely that some small part of him might look forward to the day when the burden of changing the world is lifted from his shoulders.

If you wish to make a donation in support of the work of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land please contact:
Terra Sancta Education Trust 24 Kings Gate, Gordon Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 1DY. Tel: 0870 345 2014 (www.terrasanctaeducation.org) Registered Charity n 1122180