By Belén Fernández
Pope Francis died on Monday at the age of 88 following a prolonged illness. Just on Sunday, in his Easter Sunday address in Saint Peter’s Square in Vatican City, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church chose to express his “closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel, and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people”. He went on to state that he was “think[ing] 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”– a toned-down reference, of course, to Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, which has officially killed more than 51,200 Palestinians since October 2023.
Concluding the pope’s thoughts on this particular “terrible conflict” was an “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!” To be sure, Pope Francis opted to deploy language that does not adequately reflect the horrors currently being unleashed upon Gaza. For one thing, a genocide is not a “conflict”; nor are Israeli genocidaires and Palestinian victims of genocide equal “warring parties”. That said, the pope deserves praise for utilising what would be his final platform to call for a ceasefire in Gaza – at a time when the world appears all too content to allow the mass slaughter of Palestinians to proceed indefinitely. Though he did not pinpoint who precisely is to blame for the fact that there are now “starving people” in need of aid, this is naturally a reference to Israel’s decision in early March to cut off all humanitarian aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip – a move amounting to enforced starvation and a war crime.
Pope Francis’s call for a ceasefire yesterday came just a month after Israel’s definitive annihilation of the existing ceasefire that ostensibly took effect in January, which the Israeli military had already taken the opportunity to violate at every turn Between Israel’s termination of the ceasefire on March 18 and April 9, the United Nations found that, in at least 36 separate Israeli air strikes on Gaza, women and children were the only fatalities.
As much as the starving people may “aspire to a future of peace”, then, it’s difficult to aspire to any future at all when you’re being actively exterminated by an army that enjoys the full bipartisan support of the reigning global superpower, the United States of America.
Incidentally, Pope Francis’s final day on Earth also included a brief meeting with said superpower’s second in-command: US Vice President JD Vance. The encounter came after the head of the Catholic Church openly and repeatedly criticised US President Donald Trump’s administration and its maniacal and its deportation schemes. In a February address, he noted that its immigration policies were causing a “major crisis” that “damages the dignity of men and women”.
Pope Francis made a nod to the plight of people on the move
