Elohim Yirtza Bakech אלוהים ירצה בכך
God wills it – Deus lo Vult
Today Saturday 14th December 2024, our Irish Confrère Donnacha Fahy, KHS travelled to Jaffa and Tel Aviv at the invitation of Fr Piotr Zelazko, Patriarchal Vicar of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem to be introduced to the Hebrew speaking Catholic communities.
Their pastoral and spiritual care is the concern of the ‘Saint James Vicariate For Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel’ an integral part of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem which provides ministry to five communities in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Beersheba and Tiberias.
“99.9 per cent of the Church here in Israel speaks Arabic,” Fr Zelazko says. “We are just a small, very small group.” The Vicariate of St James is not an evangelical outreach but a response to a pastoral need.
Hebrew-speaking Catholics come together geographically to form a kehilla (“congregation”) and these kehillot now exist in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba, and Tiberias; there are two more groups for Catholics from Israel’s large Russian-speaking minority emigrants from the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine.
The St James Vicariate also tends to the pastoral needs of the children of migrants and asylum seekers who have grown up in Israel speaking Hebrew, the most common language.
On 1st January 2024, H.E. Fernando Cardinal Filoni, Grand Master of The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem accompanied by H.E. Leonardo Visconti di Modrone, Governor General and Mr François Vayne, Communications Director made a special visit to St James Vicariate in recognition of its importance to the immigrant Catholic communities.
Following his visit to St James Vicariate, Donnacha visited The Church of Our Lady Women of Valor, the patron of the Migrant Community of the diocese where he met with members of the Asian Catholic community who celebrate Holy Mass and are instructed in religious doctrine in Hebrew.
https://lpj.org/…/vicariates/saint-james-vicariate-1
https://www.oessh.va/…/the-saint-james-vicariate-for…
https://cmc-terrasanta.org/…/tel-aviv:-feast-of-our…
