(LifeSiteNews) — While the Church prays for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis, and many make realistic assessments of his pontificate, one aspect of his charity stands forth in his maintaining even daily pastoral contact with the one Catholic parish in the besieged Gaza Strip which had been turned into a makeshift shelter for hundreds of civilians.
“The Pope called us for the last time on Saturday evening, just before we began the Easter Vigil, while we were praying the Rosary,” Father Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest in Gaza, shared with Vatican News earlier this week. “He told us he was praying for us, gave us his blessing, and thanked us for our prayers on his behalf.”
Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas break-out attack from the enclosed territory—which the Israeli army has occupied for several decades—and Israel’s ongoing genocidal response against the entire civilian population of two million people in the Strip, Romanelli opened the doors of the parish grounds to displaced families which include a majority of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christians, yet also 50 disabled Muslim children and their families.
Nearly every night for 18 months the late pontiff would call Romanelli to get an update on the sheltering community and inquiring about practical matters such as their access to the necessities of life, given Israel’s blockade of all humanitarian aid upon the entire population, a war crime.
“Pope Francis was a shepherd who loved and followed, as we all know, our small community—praying and working for peace,” the priest said regarding their group of approximately 500 people. “He was concerned about how we were doing, whether we had eaten, [and] about the children,” the innocent victims of the conflict.
And these calls kept coming from the pontiff, even while he was undergoing care for bronchitis which led to double pneumonia at Gemelli Hospital over the course of 38 days.
‘This is cruelty, this is not war … the children being machine-gunned … bombings of schools and hospitals’
In his final public address on Easter Sunday, following his last conversation with Romanelli the previous night, Pope Francis called for peace in Gaza and other conflict zones.
“I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation,” Francis said in a statement read by Archbishop Diego Ravelli due to his poor health. “I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages, and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!”
This plea on behalf of the assailed population of Gaza was an echo of previous statements, including one during the pope’s annual address to the Holy See’s diplomatic core last January,
“I renew my appeal for a ceasefire and the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, where there is a very serious and shameful humanitarian situation, and I ask that the Palestinian population receive all the aid it needs,” the pope said at the time.
“We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians or the attacking of infrastructures necessary for their survival,” he continued. “We cannot accept that children are freezing to death because hospitals have been destroyed or a country’s energy network has been hit.”
In December the pope also highlighted the “cruelty” of the Israeli army in bombing children, “This is cruelty, this is not war,” he said. And during his weekly Angelus prayer the next day, he doubled down, stating, “And with pain, I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty,”
‘A crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation’
The Catholic Church teaches that attacks on civilians and military operations that destroy whole cities are a grave crime. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”
A September 2024 report from the United Nations Satellite Centre found that 66 percent of all structures in the Gaza Strip had sustained damage. These included over 52,000 buildings which have been completely destroyed. Furthermore, as of January, 92 percent of housing units had been found to be destroyed or damaged leaving the vast majority of Gaza’s over 2 million residents displaced and without suitable shelter.
Reliable reports of death tolls from Israeli massacres in Gaza since October 2023 number at least 51,266, including approximately 15,600 children, with many being decapitated by American-made 2,000 pound bombs and other explosives. The cumulative impact of these hundreds of bombings exceeds five atomic bombs the likes of which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
To quickly contact your members of Congress and implore their support for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza click here.
According to a rationale presented in a July Lancet study, one can conservatively estimate total deaths, including indirect fatalities due to causes like starvation, lack of medicine or proper medical care, by multiplying direct deaths (51,266) by five to arrive at 256,330 total fatalities. And with a November UN Human Rights Office report identifying fatalities in Gaza comprising approximately 44 percent children, it is reasonable to estimate 112,785 total deaths of children.
Christians in the Holy Land plead for support from U.S. bishops
With the Trump administration in the U.S. fully supporting Israel’s current starvation blockade, which began on March 2, along with its renewed large-scale bombing campaign that began two weeks later, taking the lives of hundreds of children over the last five weeks, Christians in the Holy Land have pleaded for help from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to denounce the genocide in Gaza and demand the U.S. government end its necessary support for this ongoing atrocity.
READ: Holy Land Christians demand USCCB denounce Israel’s genocide, oppose US military support
In an open letter to President Donald Trump on March 28, Bishop Joseph Strickland admonished that in Gaza, “the indiscriminate killing of civilians – including women and children – has reached an intolerable scale. The people of Palestine, many of whom have no affiliation with terrorist organizations, suffer immensely. War cannot be waged without regard for the innocent.”
“I call upon you to seek diplomatic solutions, (and) to demand an immediate end to the destruction in Gaza … lest the fires of war consume even more innocent lives,” the bishop implored.
In response to Bishop Strickland’s letter, Eric Sammons from Crisis Magazine tweeted a question to fellow Catholics, “[W]hen Bishop Strickland and Pope Francis agree on the injustice of what is currently happening in Gaza, what excuse do you have to support it?”
Catholics: when Bishop Strickland and Pope Francis agree on the injustice of what is currently happening in Gaza, what excuse do you have to support it?https://t.co/eantiqZwpq
— Eric Sammons (@EricRSammons) March 31, 2025
In reference to Pope Francis, Fr. Romanelli said, “We hope that the appeals he made, including the last one he had the strength to issue just hours before his passing, will be heard: that the bombs stop, that this war ends, that hostages and prisoners be freed, and that humanitarian aid to the population can resume and be delivered consistently.”
“Let us ask the Lord to grant him eternal rest and let us pray that men and women of goodwill around the world heed his constant and urgent appeals for peace in Gaza and the world,” the priest concluded.
To quickly contact your members of Congress and implore their support for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza click here.
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