From the moment Pope Francis appointed a Franciscan friar as Jerusalem’s Latin patriarch last year the new appointee has had his work cut out.
Italian archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa took the job in November as the coronavirus ravaged his flock in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Cyprus.
Catholic schools and hospitals faced a liquidity crunch. Many Christians, like Muslims, saw their incomes plummet, and resorted to savings that have been running out, he told The National.
Israeli transgressions in occupied territories increased and the region remains affected by aftershocks of the Arab uprisings a decade earlier.
“All around Jordan the situation is catastrophic,” the archbishop said on a visit to Amman, pointing to the civil war in Syria, financial meltdown in Lebanon and the failed uprising in Iraq.
For centuries, a main job of the archbishop, or patriarch, has been to preserve the shrinking Christian community and forge good ties with the Muslim community.
Emigration of Christians has not stopped for decades and the temptation to leave is always there
Mr Pizzaballa needs to maintain channels with temporal authorities without the church appearing aloof to the aspirations of the people.
It involves a fine balance between pragmatism and Christian ideology, parts of which are strongly supportive of the impoverished and disenfranchised.
Mr Pizzaballa is on his first trip as archbishop to Jordan, which has a 2 per cent Christian population.
The Royal Palace said King Abdullah spoke with the archbishop two weeks ago about “the important role of the Latin Patriarchate and other churches in Jerusalem in bolstering the unity of Jerusalemites.”
Jordan, which has a population of 10 million, acts as custodian of holy places in East Jerusalem. The country has mostly avoided large anti-regime demonstrations, similar to ones that ushered in the Arab uprisings a decade ago.
While the church sympathises with popular demands for justice and accountability, the protest movements need to produce a leadership and remain peaceful, he said.
“We saw that the uprising movements did not produce leadership to be able to transform people’s expectations politically,” Mr Pizzaballa said.
Although the church has historically favoured stability in the Middle East and elsewhere, he said that this position does not justify bad government.
He pointed out Philemon, a prison letter by Saint Paul that forms part of the New Testament. In the letter Saint Paul sends a runaway slave back to his master. But he tells him to treat the slave “as a beloved brother”.
The tall, slender archbishop said the Christian way is “to change the attitude of society and conquer the hearts of the people, not the power”, cautioning that such an approach “is not always successful.”
Mr Pizzaballa, 55, is from northern Italy and was ordained as a priest three decades ago in Bologna. He is a specialist in Hebrew, coming from a Franciscan tradition of high education.
His demeanour is austere, and he speaks gently but firmly. Speaking in English, the archbishop chose his words carefully.
There are about 46,000 Christians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, 120,000 in Israel, and 10,000 in Jerusalem, where tension for centuries marked ties between the different Christian sects.
But the archbishop said many families in Jerusalem are mixed and relationships between the different Christian communities have been mostly harmonious for the last few decades.
Since the coronavirus struck last year, he said concerns of Christians in the region have been primarily economic.
“Many people are not working. No one believes that life could resume immediately,” he said, referring to a possible end to the pandemic.
“We had Intifadas. We had wars and a lot of Middle East turmoil but not a situation where everything is paralysed, for Christians and Muslims,” the archbishop said.
The Palestinian situation is particularly “dramatic”, with places such as Bethlehem hit hard by the absence of tourists, he said.
Economic hardship, together with rise of militancy has caused significant Christian migration from the Middle East since the 1970s.
This time, Europe, the US and Canada, where the bulk of Arab Christian migrants had gone, may be less open to receiving a new wave.
“Emigration of Christians has not stopped for decades and the temptation to leave is always there,” he said.
But the coronavirus has made “the situation difficult in western countries, and the possibilities to emigrate are becoming more complicated.”
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WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
List of alleged parties
May 15 2020: PM and Carrie attend 'work meeting' with at
least 17 staff members
May 20 2020: PM and Carrie attend 'bring your own booze'
party
Nov 27 2020: PM gives speech at leaving do for his staff
Dec 10 2020: Staff party held by then-education secretary
Gavin Williamson
Dec 13 2020: PM and Carrie throw a flat party
Dec 14 2020: London mayor candidate Shaun Bailey holds staff party at Conservative
Party headquarters
Dec 15 2020: PM takes part in a staff quiz
Dec 18 2020: Downing Street Christmas party
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
if you go
The flights
Emirates flies to Delhi with fares starting from around Dh760 return, while Etihad fares cost about Dh783 return. From Delhi, there are connecting flights to Lucknow.
Where to stay
It is advisable to stay in Lucknow and make a day trip to Kannauj. A stay at the Lebua Lucknow hotel, a traditional Lucknowi mansion, is recommended. Prices start from Dh300 per night (excluding taxes).
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Top financial tips for graduates
Araminta Robertson, of the Financially Mint blog, shares her financial advice for university leavers:
1. Build digital or technical skills: After graduation, people can find it extremely hard to find jobs. From programming to digital marketing, your early twenties are for building skills. Future employers will want people with tech skills.
2. Side hustle: At 16, I lived in a village and started teaching online, as well as doing work as a virtual assistant and marketer. There are six skills you can use online: translation; teaching; programming; digital marketing; design and writing. If you master two, you’ll always be able to make money.
3. Networking: Knowing how to make connections is extremely useful. Use LinkedIn to find people who have the job you want, connect and ask to meet for coffee. Ask how they did it and if they know anyone who can help you. I secured quite a few clients this way.
4. Pay yourself first: The minute you receive any income, put about 15 per cent aside into a savings account you won’t touch, to go towards your emergency fund or to start investing. I do 20 per cent. It helped me start saving immediately.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Tonight's Chat on The National
Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster with a decades-long career in TV. He has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others. Karam is also the founder of Takreem.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
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