What Pope Leo won’t say about Gaza is testing the Catholic Church
Paola Caridi writes in +972 on 10 July 2026:
The first pope from the United States was far removed from the July 4 celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the colony’s independence from the United Kingdom. Instead, Pope Leo XIV was on the edge of Europe, opposite the northern coast of Africa, on the island of Lampedusa — the first port of call for thousands of migrants making the perilous journey north in search of a better life.
After visiting the small cemetery where migrants who died in Mediterranean shipwrecks are buried, Leo stood beneath the Porta d’Europa, a monument to hospitality overlooking the sea. “I am here,” he declared, “following in the footsteps of Pope Francis, who chose to travel to Lampedusa on 8 July 2013 for his first trip as the Successor of Peter.”
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Indeed, the first year of Leo’s pontificate has consistently revolved around this theme: the need for empathy as the hallmark of both personal and collective conduct. The Gospel passage he chose for Lampedusa was the parable of the Good Samaritan, who refuses to pass by the wounded stranger, his “neighbor,” on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.
It is precisely on that road — from Jerusalem to Jericho, now choked by military checkpoints — that questions surrounding Leo’s pontificate come into focus. He speaks constantly of peace. He has repeatedly invoked Gaza and the immense suffering of the Palestinian people. Yet he has not named Israel as the perpetrator, nor has he used the word “genocide.” The words Leo does not say, words that Francis was prepared to utter, have become the defining absence of this chapter of his pontificate.