Six months after Hamas brutally attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,195 people and taking 250 hostages, I traveled to the Holy Land. During my visit there—cut short when hostilities between Israel and Iran escalated dramatically—I encountered a scared, divided land bound together in its grief and heartbreak, in its losses, tears, and fears.
These tears of grief were shed by both Israelis and Palestinians, and the stories of loss were shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. I encountered heartbroken mothers with their babies, grandparents, married couples, aunts and uncles, families and friends. And what I heard from Palestinians and the survivors of the October 7 carnage was the same: “We just want to be home. Home, safe, and secure, with our families and friends.”
Isn’t that what we all want for ourselves? For our children, for our parents, for our families and friends?
Sadly, sixteen months after that visit to the soil we call holy, the violence and bloodshed persist. Hamas still uses innocent lives as hostages even as the Israeli military continues its onslaught, flattening Gaza. Its families, maimed, shattered, and dispersed, face mass starvation. Many Israelis, and American Jews, too, fear this relentless response will be a catalyst for anti-Semitism and ask: When will it end?
No oases remain in Gaza. Brotherhood Park—once a place of repose for families in Gaza City, donated by Marie and George Doty of New York and built by the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) and Pontifical Mission for Palestine in 2002—lies in ruins, as does the Arab Orthodox Cultural Center and much of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, the only Christian medical center in Gaza. Not even Gaza’s Catholic and Orthodox parish churches have escaped the violence.
Gaza’s Christian community of Catholics and Orthodox has always been small in number, but large in its reach. As with Christians throughout the Middle East, those in Gaza, imbued with the gospel and inspired by the words and works of Jesus, the saints, and martyrs, have served their community—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, believer and non-believer. Through their initiatives and efforts, Christians have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, nursed the sick, healed the broken, offered refuge to the lost, and uplifted the lowly with schooling and counseling. Even amid the barbarity of total war, Gaza’s Catholic and Orthodox parishes have sheltered families and reached out to the community, preparing hot meals, distributing—when available—fresh fruit, vegetables, nursing formula, drinking water, medicines, and fuel for generators.
Some have lost their lives giving unto others, including the parents of one of my colleagues at CNEWA-Pontifical Mission, when the compound of St. Porphyrios Orthodox Church was shelled on October 19, 2023.
Nearly two years later, on July 17, an Israeli mortar round hit the pediment of Holy Family Church, sparing the cross at its pinnacle but damaging its roof and interior. Three people seeking shelter at the church were killed, and at least ten more were injured, including its pastor, Fr. Gabriel Romanelli.
“One cannot calculate the psychological damage and the fear incurred with this totally unjustified attack on a people already suffering from the trauma of constant war,” said CNEWA-Pontifical Mission in a statement released the day after the incident, for which Israel’s prime minister later apologized in a phone call to Pope Leo XIV.
One of my responsibilities as archbishop of New York is to chair CNEWA, which the Holy See established in 1926 to support the pastoral and humanitarian works of the Eastern churches, entrusting this special agency to the archbishops of New York. It was in this capacity that I traveled to the Holy Land last year to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Pontifical Mission for Palestine. The pope set up this task force in 1949, placing it under CNEWA, to care for the refugees of the first Arab Israeli war, many of whom took refuge in Gaza. That work of the Church continues among the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of those first refugees—who continue to share in the tragedy of their people—and includes outreach to Jews and Muslims.
I also traveled there to listen. I wanted to meet with and hear from the survivors of the October 7 terror attacks on Israelis. I met with the shattered families of those who had been taken hostage—mothers, fathers, siblings who harbored hopes their loved ones would return to them alive. Sadly, since hearing their grief, seeing their pain, and offering some consolation on behalf of all New Yorkers, we have learned that many of those young men and women are now dead.
“We want to be there for Catholic partners who have been there for the Jewish people in our times of need,” said my friend Rabbi Noam Marans of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) after the shelling of Holy Family Church. “Together, as Christians and Jews, we can affirm the shared humanity of all.”
I appreciate these words of consolation and support expressed by the AJC, as well as those offered by other Jewish leaders and congregations. I appreciate this mitzvah on behalf of the Jewish community as it brings some much-needed light to the darkness of this total war. I appreciate, too, the donation from AJC of $25,000, which I am directing to CNEWA as it coordinates worldwide Catholic aid in assisting Holy Family Church in its rehabilitation, so it may move forward in service to the Lord for the good of all. The Commission of Religious Leaders (CORL), an ecumenical and interreligious group here in New York City, raised $75,000 to help an Israeli family rebuild their home leveled by Hamas on October 7. As I write, collections are being taken up in Catholic parishes all over the country to help rebuild Gaza.
“Peace be with you!” With these words, Pope Leo greeted the world after his election as pontifex maximus, the bridge-builder. This peace “is the peace of the risen Christ. A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. A peace that comes from God, the God who loves us all, unconditionally.”
To bring about this just and lasting peace, whether in the Holy Land or among our own families, we must be “a Church that builds bridges and encourages dialogue, a Church ever open to welcoming, like this square with its open arms, all those who are in need of our charity, our presence, our readiness to dialogue and our love.”
Image by Omar Al-Qattaa , via Getty Images.
