According to Father Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest of the Holy Family Church in Gaza, Pope Francis has been checking in on the long-suffering people of Gaza even from his hospital bed in Rome, where he has been undergoing treatment for pneumonia since February 14.
In an interview with the Vatican’s official information platform, Vatican News, Romanelli revealed that Francis has maintained almost daily contact with his church throughout the 15 months of massacres, violence, fear, and hunger in Gaza. These calls have continued during his hospitalization. "He asked us how we were doing, how the situation was, and he sent us his blessing," Romanelli said.
Pope Francis believes that those who suffer and live on the existential margins of society reflect the true face of God. He is convinced that the logic of love and life is better understood by focusing on the poor and the forgotten. This deep connection to the people of Gaza demonstrates his unwavering commitment to their plight.
As a result, countless Catholics and people of goodwill worldwide are praying for the pope’s swift recovery and return to his mission. They recognize that the world can only overcome the current polycrisis under the guidance of leaders like Francis—leaders driven by compassion for those suffering from war, poverty, and injustice, and who strive to advance our shared humanity in the face of rising nativism, protectionism, and nationalism.
Over the past decade, Pope Francis has repeatedly demonstrated his commitment to promoting coexistence and confronting global injustice. For example, in February 2019, he signed the Abu Dhabi Declaration on "Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together" alongside the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayyeb. This cherished document, which recognizes all humans as brothers and sisters, calls for a culture of tolerance and peaceful coexistence, especially for the most vulnerable, including orphans, widows, refugees, and victims of war and injustice.
The COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted humanity’s shared destiny. In his post-pandemic encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Francis emphasized that the global economy is not infallible and that the future cannot be built solely on market-driven economic orthodoxies. Instead, he called for dismantling structures of injustice and fostering a new moral urgency that includes the excluded in shaping a common destiny, respecting the dignity and rights of all people.
However, the world failed to heed Francis’s warnings and learned little from the pandemic. Post-pandemic, many societies have experienced increased violence, war, nationalism, and intolerance. Social hierarchies have become more rigid, and the global system has become even more dysfunctional, fueling division and injustice.
Francis has often described the post-pandemic world as experiencing a "third world war fought piecemeal," driven by a culture of indifference. He has urged people to mourn the senseless killings of the innocent, as he did when pleading for an end to the war in Ukraine and weeping on the shores of Lampedusa, Italy, where countless migrants fleeing war and poverty have drowned. Since becoming the head of the Catholic Church in 2013, Francis has consistently emphasized that all lives are precious and that every person is a child of God.
Even from his hospital bed, Francis continues to show solidarity with Gaza’s suffering people through daily phone calls. These calls are not only acts of compassion but also reminders of the plight of those living on the margins.
Francis’s concern for war victims has led him to make perilous trips in 2023 to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the site of Africa’s longest war, and to South Sudan, where people have endured decades of conflict without peace or prosperity. In his autobiography, Hope, released in January, Francis explains how his family’s experiences of war, exile, migration, and loss have shaped his commitment to addressing the pain of war victims and immigrants.
He has also condemned world powers for their hypocrisy, noting that the same countries providing humanitarian aid to war victims are often the ones supplying the weapons that kill and maim them, while also refusing to welcome refugees.
Today, the world needs Francis’s message of peace, fraternity, and solidarity more than ever. The global crisis demands a paradigm shift from violence to nonviolent means of healing, building trust, and addressing historical injustices. Francis has consistently been a guiding light in this effort, steadfast in his belief that faith and violence are incompatible and that war is always a failure of humanity.
In stark contrast to Francis’s messages of hope, other leaders, like former U.S. President Donald Trump, continue to promote divisive and violent agendas. While Francis prays for the healing of the suffering, Trump and his allies strengthen structures of violence, seemingly wishing for the disappearance of war’s victims and the poor.
Ultimately, the most pressing question of our time is how we treat one another. We can either recognize the equal dignity of all people or dehumanize others based on race, culture, social status, or religion. As philosopher Judith Butler explains, many victims of violence today are considered "non-grievable," deemed expendable by society. When lives are framed this way, society loses its recognition that every life matters.
In a world where too many lives, including those in Gaza, are seen as "ungrievable," Pope Francis stands as a beacon of light, reminding us of our shared humanity and destiny. Though no one knows how much longer he has on Earth, his legacy of centering the poor, the weak, and the needy, and his tireless advocacy for peace, fraternity, and coexistence, will undoubtedly endure long after he is gone.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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