The role of the small Christian community in the Holy Land is not to live apart but to show how co-existence, forgiveness and reconciliation are possible. 

Conquest and leaven are particularly evocative images when reflecting on our Christian vocation in Palestine and Israel showing different approaches to the complex problems faced by all the communities in the face of ongoing conflict. 

Cardinal Pizza Balla, the Latin Patriarch wrote recently “The conflict is not something to be overcome but rather the very place in which our Church is called to carry out its specific mission as a community of believers in Christ.” Conquest is the traditional way to construct empires the kingdoms of this world. Victory is gained by domination and the elimination of the opposition, holding on to power and the making use of it is the guarantee of victory. Discrimination, occupation, ethnic cleansing, genocide, has distinguishes between victor and vanquished.  This model of kingdom (including Christian kingdoms) has dominated the history of the world. This is also the story of the middle east since WW2. Many Christians feel the need to choose one side or the other and stand by the respective ideologies of conquest. However Jesus of Nazareth suggests a different model one evoked by comparing the kingdom of Heaven to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. Leaven suggests transformation, serving society and the Church, especially in the Holy Land is called to be the leaven, the salt and the light. Not a buffer between Muslim and Jew but the Church is already working alongside, making friends and serving the two communities through medical care and education, sharing in the fits fortunes and helping to ferment from within a vision of humanity – and society- rooted in the Gospel showing co-existence, forgiveness and reconciliation is possible. For everyone 

Equality is a fundamental position for a just and lasting peace leading to a future where people can live together.