Pope Francis condemns Israel’s bombing in Gaza—again
Pope Francis stops to pray in front of a Nativity scene from Bethlehem in the Vatican audience hall 7 December 2024. The baby Jesus is lying on a Palestinian keffiyeh.
Jeff Wright reports in Mondoweiss on 24 December 2024:
Pope Frances condemned the Israeli bombing in Gaza on Saturday in his annual Christmas address to the Cardinals and other senior leaders in the Vatican. “Yesterday, children were bombed,” he said, referring to last Friday’s deadly Israeli strikes. “This is cruelty, not war. I want to say this because it touches the heart.”
Frustrated, the Pope also called attention to an incident last Friday when Israeli authorities refused to allow the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem to enter Gaza to lead worship—“as they had promised,” Francis said. The following day, having reversed their decision, Cardinal Pizzaballa, entered Gaza and led Mass, telling the congregation, “The whole world is with you.”
Earlier this month, Patriarch Pizzaballa had shared that Pope Francis is known by the children of Holy Family as “the grandfather.” Pizzaballa said that the Pope calls the parish every day at 7:00 p.m. “Maybe half a minute, 30 seconds, maybe more, maybe less… He became the grandfather of the children, the Pope, because… they know that he is calling.” Francis is said to be briefed every day about the situation in Gaza by members of the parish.
One may wonder if it’s the suffering children in Gaza who have stirred the Pope’s increasingly vocal criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza, in spite of his usual care in taking sides in a conflict.