
Well, that might be a little dramatic. Either way, it’s well done.


Bishop Pates, who heads up the Committee on International Justice and Peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has had enough. And speaking on behalf of the USCCB that means that essentially the whole body has had enough.
In a letter to Secretary of State, John Kerry, the Bishop from Des Moines wrote, “Cremisan Valley is a microcosm of a protracted pattern that has serious implications for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Mena reports.
Pates, in the same letter, asked Kerry to push for a reversal of the decision to build The Wall directly through the Cremisan Valley, a land owned by the Catholic Church. So intrusive and divisive is it that it separates the Salesian monastery there from its sister convent. I’m not sure that was what the famous quote referred to when it said, “between saintly men and women: bricks and mortar”.
Not to re-rout the wall is to “put Israeli citizens at risk and weaken initiatives for reconciliation and peace,” he said. Mena reports that Pates also wrote, “and disassociating Palestinian families from their lands and livelihoods will incite more resentment against the State of Israel among residents of the West Bank, not less, increasing the frustrations that can lead to violence.”
Indeed, as sad as that may be.
With the international media paying a little more attention to the “separation fence”, and with the U.S. Bishops pushing from our side of the pond, there might just be a little more hope for the plight of our Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters in the Holy Land.