O holy knights: guardians in the Holy Land

During the Middle Ages, soon after the First Crusade successfully recaptured Jerusalem in the year 1099, the Church established five chivalric communities — orders of knights — to protect European pilgrims to the new Kingdom of Jerusalem and to defend and assist Christians living there.
 
Today, two of these chivalric orders — the Order (Knights) of Malta and the Order (Knights) of the Holy Sepulchre — continue to provide support to the people of the Holy Land. So do the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal service order founded in the United States in the late 19th century that maintains a vigorous charitable outreach in support of Christian communities throughout the Middle East. Here is a brief profile of the work of these knights in the region of Jesus’ Nativity.

‘Forward-looking order’ provides love to orphans with disabilities

Joe Micatrotto, a legate of the Las Vegas Chapter, has enjoyed a successful career as a restaurateur helping develop such successful restaurant chains as Buca di Beppo and Raising Cane’s. His “most joyous moment,” however, was changing the diapers of disabled toddlers at an orphanage in Bethlehem, the city of Jesus’ birth.
 
The orphanage, Hogar Niño Dios (Child of God Home), is one of many Catholic institutions in the Holy Land supported by the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, of which Micatrotto is a member. Going onsite there to volunteer “is doing the work of God in the simplest and most basic way,” he said.
 
 The work of Catholic orders such as the KHS provides crucial relief to those who reside in and around Bethlehem as the region continues to struggle politically and economically and the number of Christian residents in the region continues to dwindle.
 
The Knights of the Holy Sepulchre date back nearly a thousand years, beginning as one of the five chivalric orders founded after the First Crusade. It experienced reorganization under various popes as the control of the Holy Land changed in the centuries that followed. But since the mid-19th century, when the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem was re-established, the Vatican has charged the KHS to support Christians and the Catholic Church presence in the Holy Land.
 
The order today has 33,000 members worldwide who serve under the leadership of Grand Master Cardinal Fernando Filoni in Rome. Under the direction of Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, O.F.M., apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate, the KHS provides funds and volunteers for the Holy Land’s schools, orphanages, hospitals, and parishes. Such support is crucial to the survival of the Church in the region, as the Christians who remain in the area struggle under challenging economic circumstances.
 
Two of the order’s favorite charities are Hogar Niños Dios and St. Vincent’s in Ein Karem, just outside of Jerusalem. Hogar is particularly notable as many of the abandoned children to whom it provides a home suffer from severe disabilities.
 
Located just a few hundred yards from where Christ was born, Hogar is operated by the Missionaries of the Incarnate Word and is currently home to about 40 children. Due to their severe disabilities, the orphans there are able to receive only a minimal level of education “but a maximum amount of love,” Micatrotto noted.

While a few may be able to go on to live independently, the majority will remain in the home for life.
 
St. Vincent’s, home to 40 to 60 children, is located near the site of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth.
 
The KHS also support a medical mission, in which medical professionals in 
the order volunteer to work in Holy Land medical facilities, and Bethlehem University, a Catholic college. Micatrotto also is developing a program called Faith in Action Today (FIAT), in which knights and family members can perform short-term volunteer service at sites throughout the 
Holy Land.
 
“We’re a forward-looking order. Our charge is to go forward,” Micatrotto said. “We look at a situation, see what is needed, and do what good we can.”

At this high-risk maternity hospital, peace, joy, and gratitude prevail

Pasadena legate Jim Sarni is a member of the Sovereign Order of Malta, which oversees and subsidizes the work of Holy Family Hospital in Bethlehem, a facility located just “1,500 steps” from the site of Jesus’ birth. The maternity and critical-care facility is the only in the region that can deliver and treat babies born before 32 weeks of gestation. The order assumed oversight of the hospital at the request of Pope St. John Paul II in 1989.
 
The Order of Malta is a lay religious order of the Catholic Church operating medical, social, and humanitarian projects in over 120 countries. It traces its origins to the Knights Hospitaller (Order of St. John), one of the original chivalric orders, which was formally established at the turn of the 12th century but itself has roots dating to the mid-11th century.
 
Originally founded by the Daughters of Charity in the 1880s, Holy Family is a referral hospital for the region for high-risk pregnancies and at-risk fragile and premature children. The hospital is on pace to deliver its 100,000th baby next month. “It’s the only hospital in the area that does the work it does, and it serves a large area,” Sarni said.

Michèle Bowe serves as president of the Holy Family Hospital Foundation and as ambassador of the Order of Malta to Palestine, splitting her time between the Holy Land and Washington, D.C. “Countries like Palestine that are living under occupation have a high infant mortality rate, so having a place like Holy Family Hospital is a true blessing,” Bowe said.

Every service provided at the hospital is subsidized by at least 50 percent, and many patients pay nothing at all. Bowe said the quality of care received is comparable to that offered by the best U.S. hospitals.
 
The order’s membership around the world contributes about $3 million annually to help fund the $5.5 million budget of the hospital. A portion of the funds is being used to renovate and expand the facility, Sarni noted.
 
Bowe said the hospital offers 150,000 services per year at “an incredible cost per service,” and about 70 percent of all births in the area take place there. Holy Family is also a teaching hospital, with medical personnel in training working on the staff. It further has a mobile unit that can drive deep into the area’s surrounding desert to attend to patients in need.

The facility was previously a field hospital and had closed in 1985 due to lack of funding. The hospital reopened and saw the first delivery of a baby under the Order of Malta’s administration in February 1990.

Bowe noted that although the hospital serves all without regard to creed, it has a strong Catholic culture “with depictions of the Holy Family and crucifixes everywhere.” Members of the staff wear the shield of the order with the Maltese Cross.
 
In contrast with the city of Bethlehem, which is “dusty, crowded, and has too many cars,” the hospital is “orderly, beautiful, and is surrounded by green grass and trees,” Bowe explained. A large statue of the Blessed Mother as depicted in the Miraculous Medal image overlooks the entire facility, “gazing into the NICU, where staff can be ministering to a 400-gram baby. It is the most hopeful place in the world.”

Mike Heck, a member of Legatus’ St. Louis Chapter who is also a member of the Order of Malta and serves on the Holy Family Hospital Foundation board, recalled discovering on his 2019 visit that the hospital, instead of “buzzing with noise and people” like many U.S. facilities, was “very peaceful, quiet, and serene.”

What impressed him most, he said, was that peace reigned despite the fact that about half the women who came to the doors were already in labor, “often coming from refugee camps, and [many] had not received any prenatal care whatsoever.”

He also saw peace reflected in the results of the hospital’s care.
“I recall seeing many smiling women and their husbands holding their newborn babies,” Heck said. “All throughout was a sense of gratitude and peace, as well as cleanliness and professionalism.”

Assisting in the education of the shepherds’ progeny

 The Knights of Columbus, founded by Blessed Michael McGivney in New Haven, CT, in 1882, is of relatively recent origin compared to the chivalric orders, but its tireless service in the Holy Land is every bit as noble.
 
Hikmat Dandan, deputy grand knight of Jesus the King Council 15045 in Toronto, Ontario, in Canada, leads an effort called The Jerusalem Students in which sponsors help pay for the education of K-12 students at Peter Nettekoven Greek Catholic Patriarchate School in Beit Sahour near Bethlehem.
 
Beit Sahour is the site of the fields where the angels appeared to announce to the shepherds the birth of Christ. Today, it is home to 14,500, many of whom sell artisan crafts to tourists for their livelihood.
 
Many of the families of the school’s 650 students are unable to afford the $1,150 annual tuition charged by the school and are dependent on sponsors to educate their children. “The current economic situation of parents is worsening due to closures, limited job opportunities, increasing family expenses, and the high price of basic daily necessities,” Dandan explained.

Originally a refugee from the Syrian city of Salhiye, Dandan immigrated to Canada in 1992. He became active in supporting the Beit Sahour school after the Melkite Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem visited Canada in 2011 to discuss the exodus of Christians from the Holy Land and the financial needs of the school. Using marketing skills he had learned working in the business world, Dandan began advertising the need for sponsors for the Beit Sahour students. In 2022, he secured 80 sponsors.
 
Dandan noted the school’s connection to the Christ child.
 
“Beit Sahour means ‘place of night watch’ [because] this is where the angel appeared to the shepherds and told them to go to Bethlehem and greet Baby Jesus,” he said. “The Melkite archbishop always tells the students in the school that they are the great-grandchildren of the shepherds who greeted our Lord.”

JIM GRAVES is a contributing writer for Legatus magazine.