Vatican’s Good Friday Holy Land Collection to Aid Humanitarian Efforts in Gaza 

According to last year’s summary report, the Pontifical Collection raised the equivalent of just over $7 million, of which about $3.7 million was used to support the formation of seminarians and religious brothers and sisters. Another roughly $2.5 million was allocated for educational activities, which include the academic formation of “almost 3,300 young people, mostly Palestinian Muslims,” at Bethlehem University in the West Bank, run by the De La Salle Brothers. 

This year’s appeal comes against the backdrop of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which has had a devastating effect on the civilian population. 

“With the breaking out of the way the aid has been intensified in order to support the basic and primary needs of the population exhausted by the bombardments and overcrowded within the compound of the buildings of the parish,” the summary report stated. 

“Pope Francis has never ceased to express his closeness to all those affected by the conflict in the Holy Land,” Cardinal Gugerotti wrote. “The Holy Father intends to carry out a project with humanitarian purposes in Gaza or the West Bank, which can help the population resume a more dignified life and create job opportunities once the war is over.” 

The Pontifical Collection provides community aid and assistance for parochial activities for Holy Family Parish, the only Roman Catholic parish in Gaza. 

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According to the summary report, beneficiaries included 135 persons who are part of the Holy Family Parish community, as well as “600 persons who became homeless within the parish at the beginning of the war.” 

The Pontifical Collection, in collaboration with Caritas and the Latin Patriarchate, also has provided aid for 33 children suffering epidermolysis bullosa — a group of rare inherited diseases that causes the skin to blister — in the Gaza Strip through the “Butterfly Program.”

Gaza is one of the poorest and most densely populated areas of Palestine. Since the outbreak of the war more than 30,000 civilians have been killed in the enclave, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.