On Friday 13 June, the feast-day of St Anthony of Padua, the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem solemnly celebrates its patron saint and protector. From Thursday afternoon, the Franciscan friars of the Custody gathered in prayer at St Saviour’s church for the recital of the first Vespers. The decision of the friars to entrust themselves to the protection of the Saint from Padua dates back to a particular request for intercession addressed to him in 1917, thanks to […]
“Be yourselves, for everyone, signs of hope”: these were the words (you can read the full text HERE) that Pope Francis addressed to the members of the Conference of the Latin Bishops of the Arab Regions (C.E.L.R.A.) who are holding their annual meeting in the Vatican. The Pope greeted them on the morning of 28 August in the Paul VI Audience Hall. Flame of hope The Pope expressed his closeness to those present and the Churches in the whole Region. […]
With deep emotion, we remember Father Stanislao Loffreda, born in Monteprandone (Italy), eminent biblical scholar and archaeologist, for decades the soul of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem, where he also served as director. An internationally renowned scholar, he devoted much of his life to the excavations at Capernaum, making decisive contributions to the understanding of the House of Peter and the structures of the Gospel village, and provided fundamental studies on Palestinian pottery of the Roman and Byzantine periods, […]
The commissaries of the Holy Land of some Asian countries are currently visiting Jerusalem on a trip which will then take them to Rome, Naples and Assisi.The visit to Jerusalem is part of a wider itinerary, which involves the commissaries of India, Singapore-Malaysia-Brunei and South Korea to further the knowledge of the reality of the Holy Land and its commissariats. The commissariats of the Holy Land were established in 1421 by Pope Martin V. More recently Pope Paul VI reconfirmed […]
