A Bishop I Never Knew—But Whose Prayer I Came to Know
I cannot claim to have personally known Bishop Kamal. I never had the privilege of serving alongside him. What I know of him comes from the official records of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and from the moving homily delivered at his funeral by His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. Few words were spoken, yet they were enough to unveil the essence of a man whose greatness lay not in his titles or administrative achievements, but in the depth of his prayer life. A bishop whose entire life could be summed up in a single word: prayerful.
A Life of Service
Bishop Kamal was born in Haifa in 1931 and entered the Latin Seminary in Beit Jala at the age of twelve. He was ordained a priest in the Church of Jesus the Adolescent in Nazareth in 1955. He pursued higher education in Rome, earning a degree in Social Sciences, and went on to serve in several parishes before returning to the Holy Land.
Over the course of more than three decades, he fulfilled a variety of roles within the Latin Patriarchate, most notably as Chancellor, judge in the Ecclesiastical Tribunal, and Patriarchal Vicar.
He was ordained bishop in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre on July 3, 1993. He later chaired the committee for the Great Jubilee in the year 2000 and continued his service until his retirement in 2007. In 2015, he celebrated the golden jubilee of his priesthood. The Lord called him to His eternal rest on June 23, 2025, and he was laid to rest in the cemetery of the Latin Patriarchate on June 26, 2025.
A Man of Prayer: An Example to Follow
We live in a world saturated with noise, overwhelmed by breaking news, rapid technological change, and shifting political winds. Amid this constant clamor, the quiet witness of Bishop Kamal stands out with remarkable clarity. He did not resist the world but embraced it with simplicity. He did not pursue recognition or personal acclaim; instead, he found fulfilment in glorifying God through a life of humble, steadfast prayer.
With his life, Bishop Kamal quietly whispered to our hearts: Pray.
And how deeply we need that whisper today—not merely to speak of prayer, but to live it; to rekindle it within ourselves; to rediscover the silence before God and trust in His providence amid the storms of life. In doing so, we become living witnesses to the fruit born of a life rooted in prayer.
As Cardinal Pizzaballa urged us, “Follow his example in prayer.” How could we not? Even in his advanced age, Bishop Kamal would humbly request permission to be excused from the Liturgy of the Hours when his strength failed him. While many abandon prayer amid the busyness of life, for him, prayer remained his first and most sacred duty, until the very end.
Prayer is not a privilege for priests, religious, or the particularly devout, it is the foundation of every Christian life, the breath of every faithful. Through his stillness, his rosary beads, his hidden tears, this humble bishop taught us that the true shepherd begins on his knees before the Good Shepherd.
Listening to the Divine Whisper
Let us listen to the gentle whisper of God, just as Bishop Kamal did. Let us return to prayer, to our churches, to the rosary, to meditating on Scripture, to silent adoration before the Eucharist. Let us follow his example and rediscover a vocation not defined by activity alone but rooted above all in communion with God through prayer.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
