When he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he attended a Mass for a local charismatic organization a movement which practices a holy spirit-centered faith that shares some practices with evangelicals, including lively singing at services according to Pino Scafuro, a local priest.
The following afternoon, as I celebrated Rosh Hashanah by myself in Old Cairo, I kept coming back to that story, to the bravery of those six or seven people who protected the holy place of another faith while their own country was in the throes of revolution.
These volunteers -- also Shiites with access to the Health Ministry -- are compelled by conscience and faith and take it upon themselves to bury the dead in holy anonymity.
To be sure, British envoys to the Holy Land probably found more in common with lordly Ottoman administrators than with the exuberant faith of Orthodox Christian peasant-pilgrims.