Archdiocesan Catholics give aid to the Church in the Holy Land

Franciscan Father Peter Vasko, president of the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land, sits with St. Monica parishioner Dan Crowe of Indianapolis outside the Tomb of Lazarus in the Holy Land during a pilgrimage last November. (Submitted photo)

By Sean Gallagher

As Catholics across central and southern Indiana gather in churches for the solemn liturgies of the Easter Triduum, they will be invited to recall the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus that took place in Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago.

While they’re doing that here in Indiana, other Catholics who live in the Holy Land will be doing the same.

However, the number of Christians who live in the place where Jesus and his disciples walked—and where the faith came to be—has dropped precipitously over the past several decades, in part because of the political and economic turmoil that has wracked the region for so long.

Over the past 12 years, the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land has taken action to make the place where Jesus died and rose again a land of opportunity for the Christians who live there by supporting their education and helping them find housing and jobs.

And many archdiocesan Catholics are joining the foundation’s efforts to support what Franciscan Father Peter Vasko, the foundation’s president, called “the mother Church.”

“Our religious roots and heritage comes from Jerusalem,” said Father Peter during a recent visit to Indianapolis.

“Without the Church of Jerusalem, there would be no Church in Cincinnati or Indianapolis or Tokyo or New York.”

Whether he is leading pilgrimages in Israel or traveling in the United States, Father Peter is constantly meeting Catholics, some of whom have a longstanding love for the Holy Land or others who are coming to learn about the Church there for the first time.

“It’s very exciting to meet more and more Catholics … who once they hear about it, want to do something about it,” he said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity, not only to tell the story but to see the love that they have for the Church in the Holy Land.”

Husband and wife Dan Crowe and Ruth Stanley, members of St. Monica Parish in Indianapolis, met Father Peter during a pilgrimage they took to the Holy Land last November.

While they were there, they viewed and prayed at many of Christianity’s holiest places and met Christians who live there.

Shortly after returning home, Crowe and Stanley decided to participate in the foundation’s Child Sponsorship Program, which provides tuition support for students in Church-run grade schools in the Holy Land.

“It was very rewarding to be able to … recognize that maybe, in some small way, we could help to educate this child through graduation,” Crowe said.

“It really caught our imagination, that without some care, Christianity could disappear from Israel,” Stanley said. “And, if you think about that, we would be visiting tourist sites rather than living places.”

Crowe and Stanley aren’t the only ones from Indiana giving aid to Christians in the Holy Land. Of the 65 students receiving tuition assistance through the Child Sponsorship Program, 19 are sponsored by Hoosiers.

Additionally, residents of Indiana were the third largest group of supporters of the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land in 2006, ranking only behind Texas and California.

In addition to leading them to give support to the Church in the Holy Land, Crow and Stanley’s pilgrimage has also had a continued spiritual impact on their lives from Advent onward.

“All of the scripture readings just came alive in my mind [in Advent and Christmas],” Stanley said, “and so the same thing is happening with Lent and now coming into Holy Week.”

Father Peter said that pilgrimages taken by American Catholics to the Holy Land not only benefit them, but are helpful to the Christians who live there.

“They want to meet American Catholics,” he said. “They appreciate the fact that we’re helping out with their education, getting jobs and building apartments. But they want to see the people.”

In part, the Christians there want to see the people who have given them support because that support, according to Father Peter, is starting to make a difference.

Over the time that the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land has supported Christian college students there, 130 have earned degrees and 65 percent of them are now working in a number of professional fields. Much of the remainder is made up of women who have gotten married and chosen to be stay-at-home mothers.

“It’s the beginning of something,” Father Peter said. “And so [because of] the hard work of the last 12 years that the foundation has been doing, we’re seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.”

(For more information about the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land, log on to www.ffhl.org or call toll free 866- 905-3787.) †