TerreSainte.Net, August 29, 2026
In Milan, at the 47th edition of the Meeting for Friendship among the Peoples of Rimini, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, shared his reflections on the current situation in the Holy Land.
The 2026 edition of the Rimini Meeting, the annual highlight of the Italian Communion and Liberation movement, concluded on August 26 with an address by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. Three high school students posed questions to him: Lucia Salerno, from Milan; Grant Eberle, an American from Kansas; and Kirill Stash, a resident of Rimini who is originally from Ukraine.
Searching the Skies of Jerusalem was the title chosen for this final and eagerly anticipated meeting. The themes addressed by Cardinal Pizzaballa in his recent pastoral letter, They Returned to Jerusalem with Great Joy, provided the common thread throughout the conversation. In response to the questions of the three young people, the Patriarch answered with the frankness that characterizes him.
At Lucia [Salerno's] invitation, the conversation began with peace and the role of politics. “We must not reduce peace to a slogan, and we must avoid naïve approaches,” the Patriarch observed. We must recognize, he said, that politics is made up of balances, interests, and relationships of power, and that it cannot escape these dynamics. The problem arises when political action is reduced to these things alone. In the Middle East, he observed, “the sense of the common good has been lost”: within institutions, people seem to work only for the interests of their own side, without considering the common good. “Peace is a complex task” that “requires political action that follows its own dynamics,” but “someone must always raise his voice and remind politics whom it is meant to serve.” This responsibility to raise one's voice also belongs to religious leaders. The Cardinal added another observation: politics does not operate only from the top down; it also moves in the opposite direction. Civil society demonstrates a vitality and capacity for commitment “that give me good hope.”
Grant [Eberle] asked how one can avoid being overwhelmed by events and keep hope alive. The Cardinal's answer was not at all consoling. Speaking of hope in a context as fragile as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, can give the impression of “stirring up air.” “Hope does not provide the solution to problems,” he explained; nor is it the expectation that something will come from outside. Rather, “it is a daughter of faith; it is the awareness that we are not alone.” And it is encountered within the population itself, in activities, groups and people who are “very active and very present.” “Violence makes a lot of noise,” he said, “but there is also a lot of good.”
The Latin Patriarch then spoke about his most recent visit to Gaza, last June. He had initially hesitated when he was repeatedly urged to visit Al-Azhar University, the public university in the Gaza Strip, which is distinct from the Islamic institution of the same name in Cairo. Eventually persuaded by the rector's insistence, he found himself before 600 very young students who were, in one way or another, trying to rebuild university life. They asked the Cardinal many questions, but none of them concerned the war. They wanted to hear about his personal experience, his vocation, and various aspects of Christianity. One of the students, a Muslim, had even prepared his question in Latin. “I don't know how many students in our pontifical seminaries would be able to do the same,” the prelate remarked with amusement. He then added: “When I said that Christians do not want violence, everyone suddenly stood up and applauded, as if they wanted to say that they too felt the same way, that they were tired of all this violence.” To avoid being swept up by events, the Christian must also turn to prayer, Pizzaballa emphasized. “It will not change the course of geopolitics, but it will certainly change my outlook. It helps me to put things in order within myself and reminds me that I am not the one directing history.”
Kirill [Stash] addressed the ugliness of war, which leads to both physical and moral degradation. The Cardinal agreed: conflict “destroys, but it also robs young people of their best years, their dreams, and their prospects.” It sets in motion forces that deform people, in which the other person “is demonized so that it becomes easier to strike him.” “War dehumanizes little by little,” he said. Its logic must be rejected, even by those who are forced to fight with weapons in their hands. The logic of war must not be allowed to take root in the personal conscience, where it can transform and shape a person's identity. “We must remain human,” he said.
One of the most intense moments of the evening arose from a question: How to avoid seeing the other as an enemy when one feels like a victim? “In the Holy Land, everyone considers themselves a victim, the only victim,” the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem repeated. In this way, he said, violence finds a place in the heart and in our words. The way forward is to overturn the logic of categorization — Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, believers, non-believers — which is convenient and simplistic, but ultimately blinds us. We must free ourselves from categories and encounter people in their uniqueness. “One person, one face, one name” means encountering “a story,” and this changes our perspective. We need witnesses capable of crossing borders and opening “breaches”: “The only way to get out of a vicious circle is to encounter the other.”
A more personal question concerned the experience of suffering that Pizzaballa himself has endured for several years. Without entering into overly intimate details, the Cardinal spoke of the pain caused by relationships that break down “because we said something that did not please” someone; the pain of those who are no longer there; and the pain that comes from a sense of powerlessness, from feeling “sometimes inadequate, not up to the situation.” It is precisely then, he confided, that prayer becomes important, because it allows us to “forgive our own powerlessness.” His gaze turns to the Cross, “where Jesus, humanly speaking, fails. And yet it is from there that our salvation springs.”
Among the themes of his pastoral letter, the idea of the “purification of memory” has generated the greatest controversy, Cardinal Pizzaballa acknowledged, explaining once again what he means: “Purifying memory does not mean forgetting the past, but preventing our interpretations of the past from becoming the criterion that determines our future relationships.” Redeeming our own interpretation of history is decisive, as is listening to the stories of others, even when we cannot accept or agree with them. We must cultivate a memory “that does not give rise to resentment,” but instead gives future generations the possibility of not repeating the same mistakes. This work must be undertaken at every level: in universities, schools, synagogues, mosques, and churches, and above all in families, in the way parents pass on to their children the story of their own experiences.
This also leads to the question of interreligious dialogue, which must arise from a solid sense of belonging, without becoming defensive: “If I am a serene, convinced Christian, at peace with myself, I am not afraid to meet others. I do not feel threatened by them; I do not stand against anyone. I know that there is nothing important that others can take away from me; on the contrary, I have everything to give.”
