Unable to celebrate Mass with the Catholics of Gaza, the Bishops of the Holy Land Coordination prayed in solidarity with the Gazans at the Erez crossing – the Israel/Gaza border.
After six hours the Bishops were finally allowed into Gaza (around 13:00 GMT).
The bishops gathered for morning prayer. In the clip to the right of this page, you can listen to the Adoremus Te Domine.
The Bishops who will take part in this year’s Holy Land Co-ordination are:
Bishop Declan Lang, England and Wales (Chair)
Archbishop Ricardo Fontana, Italy
Archbishop Joan Vives, Spain
Archbishop Patrick Kelly, England and Wales
Archbishop Stephen Brislin, South Africa
Bishop Michel Dubost, France
Bishop Oscar Cantu, United States
Bishop Lionel Gendron, Canada
Bishop William Kenney, England and Wales
Bishop Stephen Ackermann, Germany
Bishop Thomas Renz, Germany
Bishop Raymond Browne, Ireland
Bishop Kieran O’Reilly, Ireland
Bishop Peter Burcher, Scandinavia
Bishop Felix Gmur, Switzerland
Bishop Christopher Chessun, Church of England
Since 1998, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has organised the annual meeting of the Coordination of Episcopal Conferences in Support of the Church of the Holy Land and at the invitation of the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land. It’s often more simply called the Holy Land Co-ordination.
Mandated by the Holy See, the Holy Land Co-ordination meets every January in the Holy Land, focusing on prayer, pilgrimage and persuasion with the aim of acting in solidarity with the Christian community there and sharing in the pastoral life of the local Church as it experiences intense political and social-economic pressure.
