The president of the US bishops’ conference called for a special collection to bolster the Catholic Church’s response to a deepening humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip as the Israel-Hamas war continues to grind on.
In a letter to his brother bishops, Archbishop Timothy P Broglio, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged them to hold a “special collection to provide humanitarian relief and pastoral support for our affected brothers and sisters in Gaza and surrounding areas in the Middle East” through both Catholic Near East Welfare Association and Catholic Relief Services, the overseas humanitarian relief agency of the Catholic Church in the US.
Excerpts of the letter, dated 12 August according to CNEWA, were released by both CNEWA and the USCCB 20 August.
In July, organisations including the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the UN World Food Program, and UNICEF warned that a hunger crisis was deepening in the devastated area, exceeding famine thresholds, with more than one in three people going days at a time without eating.
The archbishop said both CNEWA and CRS have well-established partnerships in the region that allow the Catholic Church to deliver aid quickly and efficiently to the Gaza Strip, and urged them to “take up this collection and send funds to CNEWA and CRS as soon as possible.”
