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His flock in the Holy Land By Yuval Ben Ami and Osnat Skoblinski Tags: israel news, pope israel The real magical moment came at the moment of transition. Up until 5 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, Saint Anthony's Church was full of Arab melody. In the following hour, an English-language mass was held at the Jaffa church. The pews emptied of elderly, short-haired Arab women wearing large crosses as young women, caregivers from the Philippines, slipped into the vacant places. On a screen in front of the altar, the words of the closing hymn in Arabic were still projected. From the corridor came the sounds of the strumming of a guitar and a hasty rehearsal. The Catholics of the Holy Land, to which Pope Benedict XVI arrives today, are members of a community that has changed its appearance entirely during the past 20 years. Greater Tel Aviv and the central coastal metropolitan area have undergone the most striking change. Since the 1990s, a tiny community of fewer than a thousand Arabs, most of them residents of Jaffa, has been joined by more than 22,000 members of various communities of migrant workers. According to Father Taufik, the head of the Jaffa parish, there are about 3,000 practicing Catholics from the Indian community alone. There is, for the most part, no record of disagreements between an Arabic-speaking minority and the many foreigners who have joined Israel's Catholics, but the pope's impending visit has been a source of tension. For security reasons, only a very limited number of the faithful have been invited to participate in the events that will accompany the papal visit, which include masses to be conducted in Jerusalem and Nazareth. The Jaffa community has thus far been granted only 300 invitations. In his sermon Father Taufik promised from the podium to update the parishioners daily about the quota and to press the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem to enlarge it. Advertisement The parishioners already know how the selection will be made: Invitations will be given to the most devout, those whose involvement in the life of the community is greatest and rate of attendance in church is high. Among them is likely to be Rami Sayegh, the Jaffa-based correspondent for Radio Al Shams in the Galilee and a regular churchgoer. Sayegh defines himself as "religious to the brink of ultra-Orthodox." He attends Father Taufik's mass daily yet he does not know whether he will be able to rectify a historical glitch this time around: When Pope John Paul II visited here nine years ago, Sayegh was in the United States. He is still frustrated at having missed him. The radio reporter is saddened by the pressure placed on his huge community with its ration of a mere 300 invitations. Nevertheless, he is aware above all of the distress of other Catholics in a different community: "What is hurting us as Christians is that our Christian brethren in the territories are even more restricted than we are. I happened to have been in Ramallah two weeks ago, where the community numbers 3,500 people. Imagine, half of them would like to go, and that's already a problem. Apart from that, they are regarded as Palestinians and this is even more restricting. It's possible to understand the security considerations, but on the other hand, it's also impossible to understand them." People like Sayegh, Arab Roman Catholics who live in the State of Israel, are a minority within a minority within a minority. It's like a Russian doll, explains Sayegh in a side aisle inside the church building, as he is pressed against a wall by Filipino worshippers lighting candles. They are preparing for a procession in which they will carry around in circles a statue of the Virgin Mary, in honor of the month that is dedicated to her. Sayegh is also finding himself to be a doll inside an even smaller doll: a member of an Arabic-speaking minority in his own parish. A less tiny minority is constituted by Greek Catholics (also known as Melchites or Eastern Rite Catholics). They belong to the Vatican hierarchy though they have never worshipped in Latin but rather in Greek or Arabic. Even though they belong to a minor and exceptional group, from the perspective of the Vatican, it is they who are called "Catholics" here while the Roman Catholics are called "Latins." According to church data, at the start of the decade the Greek Catholics accounted for 64,000 in the Arab sector in Israel, as compared to 12,000 Latins, 9,000 Maronites (who are also in fact subsumed under the Vatican), 32,000 Orthodox and 3,000 Protestants. More recent figures are hard to come by. The Latin Patriarchate's information center, for example, told us that "there is no way of knowing." Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics does not investigate denominational breakdown among the Christians in Israel nor does it collect any information about foreign workers, so that the precise number of Catholics in the country today is not known. In addition to the Arab communities, and labor migrants, there are also Catholic diplomats, volunteers who belong to welfare organizations under the auspices of the Holy See and monks and nuns from the various orders. Among the latter are monks from Lebanon and Syria whose orders established their traditional center of activity in Jerusalem before the borders that divide nations today were drawn up. Israel also has four communities of Hebrew-speaking Catholics, some of them converted Jews, some of them scholars, but all of them under the wing of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem. 'I don't know him personally' For Hana Hijazi, a resident of Jaffa who belongs to the Greek Catholic community, the distinctions are not meaningful. She finds the whole matter of denominations quite confusing. Her husband, Jerry, is a Latin. Her 17-year-old son Ibrahim will meet the pope when he comes to Israel. All of the students from his school, Terra Sancta, and another school of the same name in Ramle will greet His Holiness at the airport. Is Ibrahim excited? "No. He's just another human being." "Nevertheless," his mother chides him under the large painting of Saint George that hangs in their living room: "He is a great man." "I don't know about that. I don't know him personally." At a time when the pews of the church are filling up with new believers from abroad, various trends are diluting Catholic awareness within the local community. One of them is mixed marriages with Orthodox Christians, which in recent decades have become entirely acceptable. Another trend is the trick of baptism for the sake of separation: Couples who have married in Catholic weddings become Orthodox so that it will be possible for them to divorce. The simple processes of secularization are also affecting the nature of the community. Kamil Serouji, a vehicle importer from Nazareth, has found himself, under the influence of modern life, moving away from religion. "I'm Catholic," he says, "but with doubts. Catholicism is something you get by inheritance and over the years you are likely to lose it. You are educated on one thing, and find yourself growing into something different." Of all the religious communities in Israel, including that of the Jews, it is the Catholics who are connected by an especially thick cord to modern Europe, where the churches are emptying out. A Muslim 'welcome' If there is a place where one could sense the heartbeat of the Israeli Catholic street in advance of the Pope's arrival, it is Nazareth, the only city in the country with a neighborhood dubbed the "Latin Quarter." At first, it seems no different from any other neighborhood. Prior to the visit of John Paul II in 2000, the city's ancient market was renovated from top to bottom. This time not even colorful flags have been strung up. Apart from modest posters welcoming the pontiff that hang here and there, he will being welcomed by only one gigantic billboard, and that was the initiative of an Islamic organization: "Anyone who seeks after a religion that is not Islam will not find truth, and after his death he will be one of the losers," the billboard informs people as they approach the Basilica of the Annunciation. But the real preparations are in the heart. For about a decade now, Bedra Younis, a resident of the Latin Quarter, has been the keeper of the keys to the enchanted Mensa Christi Chapel there, and lends them out to visitors who knock on her door. She proudly displays a shirt that on one side displays a picture of Benedict and on the other a portrait of Mary. The collection has been prepared for the youth group of the Latin Church. As Younis sees it, the main value of the visit is in its ability to transcend borders. "I hope that this visit will bring all the sects and groups in Christianity together," she says, "so that we will be one communion. When the previous pope came, the walls between the denominations came tumbling down, and I hope that this will continue. Everyone is excited about the Pope's visit, even the Orthodox. All of us, the Christians of Nazareth, want to be together." If what Younis is hoping comes to pass, it will only be in quite a partial way. Though members of the non-Catholic denominations of Nazareth did rejoice in John Paul's visit to Israel, Benedict makes a different impression as a personality. One woman from Nazareth, who belongs to the Orthodox Church, dismissed the impression of excitement in her community. "He isn't connected to us," she said of Benedict. "The previous Pope, they said of him that he was a saint, and everyone wanted to go out and see him. This time it's different." The visit, she says, has one important value and that is what is exciting everyone: A visit by the Pope is a catalyst and fuel for tourism in the city and in the country as a whole. This is something that excites Catholics, other Christians, Muslims and Jews alike. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Theft in Gaza Elite IDF soldier confesses to stealing credit card from Gaza home during Gaza war. Raising the Bar Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli voted 3rd hottest woman by Maxim magazine.

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