Taybeh, the last Christian village in the West Bank: the Latin Patriarch celebrates the Assumption there

On 15 August 2026, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem travelled to Taybeh, the last entirely Christian village in the West Bank, and celebrated Mass at the Latin Church of Christ the Redeemer. The parish priest welcomed him as a father come to his children in difficult days.

The visit follows the entry into force of an Israeli military order, issued in July 2026, declaring “the area of Taybeh and Rimon” a closed military zone and prohibiting Israelis and foreign nationals alike from entering or remaining there. The designated area takes in part of the village, agricultural land, and religious and historical sites, which raises the question of access to Taybeh for pilgrims, visitors, journalists and volunteers.

Residents report that in recent weeks they have suffered settler attacks: homes and crops destroyed, access to water obstructed. The parish priest has warned for months that when the world’s attention fails, the last Christian village in Palestine will cease to exist. On the immediate cause of the closure the emphasis differs from one account to another: here a military administrative act, there the culmination of settler violence. We do not settle that point; both agree that Taybeh is closing in on itself.

Before his community, the Cardinal spoke plainly. “We will continue to do everything in our power to preserve the Church’s presence here, at every level, throughout the Holy Land,” he said. And again: “I may not have answers on a human or worldly level, but I believe in God. And I am certain that, in Him, we can continue to bring life, even here in Taybeh.” Of those who remain he asked courage: “We want to remain a community that gives birth to life, without giving up our rights, our right to life. So be courageous. Do not be afraid.”

What the Church has always taught about the Holy Places

The Church has never regarded the Holy Land as a museum of stones. There where the Word was made flesh, suffered and rose again, she has willed to keep a living Church, made of men who pray and hand on the faith on the very soil of the Redemption. This is why, when the war of 1948 tore Palestine apart, Pius XII returned to the subject more than once. In the encyclical Redemptoris nostri cruciatus (1949) he wept over the fate of the Holy Land, called for effective protection of the Holy Places and of those who dwell in them, and asked that justice be done to those who had been torn from their homes.

The same tradition judges violence done to the innocent. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches, on the fifth commandment, that God forbids not only murder but every unjust violence done to one’s neighbour, and that He entrusts the life and goods of the weak to the charity of the strong. To destroy the house, burn the harvest, cut off a village’s water in order to empty it of its inhabitants falls under that prohibition.

The measure

Held against that rule, what is happening at Taybeh can be named without emphasis. To close a Christian village by force, to destroy its goods and obstruct its life, is an injustice, and injustice remains injustice whoever commits it and whatever decree covers it. We ascribe to the men of Taybeh no cause but their own, and we do not condemn a whole people for the acts of a few: we name the act.

And we praise what must be praised. A community that, under duress, chooses to “give life” and not to yield to fear holds exactly the place the tradition assigns it: witness to Christ where He lived. The pastor who stays beside it does his duty as a pastor.

For the faithful

The faithful are not asked to settle a conflict over land, nor to drape themselves in an indignation that costs nothing. They are asked not to forget. The Church of the East, the most ancient, dwindles year by year, and first of all where no one is looking. The first help is the one the Church has always prescribed: to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, in the words of the psalm, “Rogate quae ad pacem sunt Ierusalem” — “Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem” (Ps. 121:6). The second is to hold the faith these Christians hold at the price one sees.

Sources. Pius XII, encyclical Redemptoris nostri cruciatus (1949), on the Holy Places and the inhabitants of the Holy Land; Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth commandment; Psalm 121:6 (Vulgate; Douay-Rheims).