Pope twice phones Gaza parish priest

Michie · Oct 15, 2023

The war between Israel and Hamas led the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem to return to his flock, while the Vatican and Synod participants interceded for peace.

This week was tinged with mourning at the Vatican. The Hamas attack in Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people and wounded more than 3,000, and Israel’s ongoing retaliation in the Gaza Strip, are at the heart of the concerns of Pope Francis and the synod fathers and mothers gathered in Rome.

The Holy Land’s new cardinal, back in Jerusalem

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, had come to Rome for his cardinalate on September 30 and for the opening of the Synod on October 4. Now, he had to make an emergency return to his flock as the conflict in the Holy Land was cruelly set ablaze by large-scale bombardments.

“I only managed to get back [on Monday] with the help of the civil and military authorities, both Israeli and Jordanian, because I entered through Jordan,” the cardinal explained to Vatican News. The Latin patriarch, who has just been created a cardinal, found “a frightened country” and “so much anger and so much expectation to receive a word of guidance, of comfort, and also of clarity about what is happening.”

Cardinal Pizzaballa has recently warned on several occasions of the fire smoldering beneath the embers, referring to the worrisome situation of the Palestinians. He told Vatican News that he was saddened to have been “an easy prophet.”

“The escalation of the clash was there for all to see. But an explosion of such violence, scale and brutality no one had foreseen,” he said.

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