As this Advent begins, in Bethlehem the sun is once again shining, after the intense cold and continuous rain of recent days. Following the traditional entrance of Custos Pierbattista Pizzaballa accompanied by scouts, the town prepares for Christmas: a group of workers is busy working on the lights that will illuminate Star Street. On Manger […]

Valerio, a young Sicilian who is 32, spent more than a month aiding youngsters in Bethlehem: in the morning helping out as a cook for the sisters of the Home of Peace, and in the afternoon taking care of disabled children at the Hogar Niño Dios. A few days following his transfer to Jerusalem, where […]

In a land where drought is persistent for several months a year, most families —and particularly those in the poorest and most vulnerable communities— do not have enough drinking water. This is a problem that affects dramatically the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the whole of the West Bank. In fact, […]

In the 1960s Fathers Stanislao Loffreda and Virgilio Corbo excavated in Capernaum  the remains of a Byzantine church with a mosaic floor. Very similar to mosaics found in nearby Tabgha, this 55 m² mosaic has geometric and decorative patterns with a peacock, symbol of immortality, at its center. The two archaeologists decided to remove the […]

The Christmas campaign for Bethlehem kicks off: Association pro Terra Sancta needs your help to assist the children and the poorest of the town where Jesus was born. OBJECTIVE FOR CHRISTMAS 2014: €225,000 to help 350 Palestinian families and 2000 children of Bethlehem Child Jesus was born in a grotto in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. […]

On Saturday 11th October, friars and pilgrims descended on Capernaum for the annual blessing of first fruits. It was a day of celebration for a number of reasons: a reconstruction of the Byzantine mosaic found in the house of Peter was installed for the occasion, produced by the young mosaicists of the Mosaic Centre Jericho. The […]

[From Custodia.org] “The exhibition MFH Manuscripta Franciscana Hierosolymitana took place on Thursday, October 23th at the Library of the Custody of St. Saviour’s Monastery. The program: blessing of the new stained glass window,guided tour of the 35 exhibited manuscripts, conference in the afternoon. Before an attentive audience, the former director of the Library, Fr. Marcello […]

The renovation project, which started in March 2012, has been carried out for more than two years by workers from the Custody’s Technical office as part of the project “Jerusalem, Stones of Memory” of Association pro Terra Sancta. The first stage of the renovation involved the restoration of the monastery and areas belonging to the […]

On 23 October at 09:oo am, in the presence of the Custos of the Holy Land, the Very Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the inauguration of “MFH Manuscripta Franciscana Hierosolymitana. Selected Exhibition” took place at St. Saviour’s Monastery. Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to see 36 precious manuscripts in the Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Ethiopian, […]

[From Terrasanta.net] On Oct. 10th the Franciscan has been brought back to the convent of Knayeh and he is doing well. The pastor of the Latin Church in a village in northern Syria, was kidnapped on the night between October 5th and 6th by militants of the Jahbat Al-Nusra group. The friar cannot leave the […]

“My name is Ruggiero and I am a violinist, a member of the orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. I have recently returned with a group of ten people from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land organized by my parish in Rome. The trip was a very moving experience for a variety of […]

On the night of 5 October a number of rebels linked to Al-Nusra Jahbat entered the Convent of St. Joseph in Knayeh, near the Turkish border, and kidnapped the Franciscan parish priest Father Hanna Jallouf and also abducted a number of civilians. The Franciscan sisters who were in the convent have taken refuge in local […]

Umm George, of Armenian origin, is a septuagenarian Iraqi woman who escaped from the war in the 1990s to take care of her husband who had been injured during the first Gulf War. She then remained as a widow in Jordan, lacking the financial resources to return to Iraq, where a month ago she was […]

Set on a hill in the high ground that surrounds Bethlehem, the Antonian Charitable Society building is one of those hidden but appealing oases of the city in which Jesus was born. The facility is home to lodgings for the elderly and, close by, a small refuge. It is in this setting, with a view […]

The new headquarters of Association pro Terra Sancta has been officially inaugurated in Milan. The new premises, located in the monastery on the piazza Sant’Angelo, was blessed by padre Francesco Bravi, Provincial Superior of the Order of Friars Minor of Milan. Present at the blessing on Friday 26 September were fra Renato Del Bono, guardian […]

There is now an additional factor binding the Holy Land with Italy, and in particular with the small town of Bronzolo in the province of Bolzano. A two-day meeting in Bronzolo, in fact, marked the beginning of a new intervention to restore the mosaics of Dominus Flevit, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Following […]

The new site on making legacies in favor of the Holy Land is now online. It is intended for those who wish to plan ahead and make a final gesture that will have a lasting impact; for those who wish to enter into the history of the Holy Land. To leave a part of one’s […]

On 22 and 23 September Carla Benelli, coordinator of cultural and training projects for Association pro Terra Sancta, Tommaso Saltini, the director of the Association, and Osama Hamdan, President of Mosaic Centre Jericho, will meet in Milan with the managers of two foundations that deal with quality craftsmanship. The first is the Fondazione Giovanni e […]

Within the Saint Saviour’s complex in Jerusalem, the main headquarters of the mission of the Custody of the Holy Land, work is ongoing to restore the ancient structures of the Franciscan monastery and to give them a new function. In addition to restoring houses for the Christians of the Holy City, the team of workers is […]

After his recent visit to Syria, Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa – Custodian of the Holy Landand president of the Association pro Terra Sancta –explains what he has seen in the massacred city of Aleppo. In his words we can find hope, and we hear that it is still possible, in an ocean of suffering and violence, […]