Download pdf: Italiano - English - Español
For the sake of Zion, I will not be silent, for the sake of Jerusalem I will not give myself peace (Is 62:1).
For a long time, I have been accompanied by a question: how long is it possible to remain silent in the face of the evil that wounds the world?
As a believer, as a Friar Minor and as Minister General of a fraternity that has been present in the Holy Land for centuries, I feel that the time has come to speak out.
In this reflection, on the one hand, the fear of taking a position and doubt emerges; on the other, the evangelical imperative to speak in the name of my brothers and sisters scattered throughout the world, especially for the situations that have been agitating the Middle East for years now, where we Friars Minor are present: from Israel to Palestine, from Jordan and from Lebanon to Syria.
I have been to these countries several times, even in recent years. I have met mothers who mourn their children, families forced to aba don their homes, and people who continue to hope despite everything. I was particularly touched by the situation of young people, who see no future and often just want to escape. Who can blame them?
Recent scenes have filled the gap: in Israel and Gaza, in southern Lebanon as far as Beirut, in the last hours in Taybeh, traditionally identified with the biblical Ephraim to which Jesus withdrew before his passion.
In the face of the thousands upon thousands of children who have died, of the victims of violence that spares no age or condition, of the indiscriminate destruction that lays waste to the land, and of the dispossession of peoples from their lands and their rights, I feel bound to repeat, together with the prophet, that it is precisely because I love — because we love — Jerusalem and all that land, the cradle of many peoples since the earliest of times, that we can no longer remain silent.
I take full responsibility for these words, speaking to them with fear and freedom of conscience.
I would like all peoples to see the justice and glory of Jerusalem (Cf. Is 62:2) and call it by a new name, which only God can give and which no human strategy can ever invent.
I would like no one to call Jerusalem "abandoned" or "devastat-ed" her land (cf. Is 62:4). And in the face of the total destruction of homes and people, the question rises strongly and painfully: until when?
How long will power claim to be able to destroy with impunity, and a few will decide who should live and who should die — the little ones, the young people at a rave, the families in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Leba-non?
How long will children continue to pay the price of adult wars?
How long will the law of the strongest be considered more important than human law and dignity?
And until when will this also happen in Ukraine and in many other parts of the world, ravaged by violence, oppression, and endless wars, which have now almost become a value in themselves?
And how long will we remain silent, resigned to the banality of evil, afraid of the consequences of a word of denunciation, perhaps only out of the desire to remain quiet and not to take on the pain of the world?
As a pilgrim to the Holy Land many times, I have learned that that land has a unique symbolic force for everyone. We, Christians, are not strangers to it: here our fathers sought the face of God, here Christ walked, and here his Church still bears witness to him in the passage of time. No people are strangers to it: neither the people of the Covenant, nor the disciples of Christ, nor the believers of Islam.
We need, then, watchmen on your walls, O Jerusa-lem, who are silent neither day nor night, remembering the Lord's promises (Cfr. Is 62:6). Nor do we want to give rest to the Lord until he has restored Jerusalem and made it the glory of the earth (cf. Is 62:7).
We do not rest, Lord, as Friars Minor who have continued to remain in that land since we came there in the time of Saint Francis of Assisi. Faithful to the peoples who dwell in that land — dedicated to the care of the holy places and the welcome of pilgrims, to pastoral ministry and education in our schools, to dialogue, and to social and cultural works — we wish to keep walking this path, clearing it of stones and lifting up a banner of peace (cf. Is 62:10).
We cannot and do not want to remain neutral, but to be builders of peace, workers of justice, capable of denouncing evil wherever it comes from.
No political, religious, strategic, or military reason can justify the denial of the inviolable dignity of every human person, without exception.
We choose to stay, even when our presence may no longer seem welcome. Let us choose to remain with the humility of the little ones and with the frankness of those who learned from Jesus of Nazareth to give to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's.
We do not want to remain neutral either, we who do not live in the Holy Land, but who love it and make it known in the world as a land of peace. Let us learn from so many brothers and sisters who, with the steps of peace and reconciliation, tread lands soaked in the blood of the little ones, where the arrogance of the few bullies who claim to govern the world resounds, challenging the only power: that of the love of the Almighty and merciful God, who wants the peace and happiness of all his children.
We do not want only to call for peace in general, but to call by name what prevents it and can even make it impossible. We want to put words and gestures of peace, to take a standby remaining close to those who suffer — wherever they are — raising our voices so that the little ones are not victims of the arrogance of the proud.
Brother Francis sent us into the world with a simple word: may the Lord give you peace! We want to continue to shout it and to realise it with our lives and with the proclamation, together with women and men of goodwill.
Today, peace cannot be just a wish. It must become a choice, a responsibility, a stance in favour of the life of every person and against everything that humiliates and destroys them. Let us commit ourselves, each according to his or her own responsibility, to transform this choice into concrete gestures.
In this spirit and with confidence, I entrust these poor words to those who want to listen to them and, once again, to our own lives at the work of peace and justice. In unceasing intercession, I greet everyone in the name of the Lord and with lively fraternity.
Fr Massimo Fusarelli, OFM
Minister General
Rome, 13th June 2026
Feast of St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of the Custody of the Holy Land
Prot. 115426/MG-096-2026