It was two days before Pope Francis last called the Palestinians in Gaza and gave him his blessing two days before his death on April 21st. His funeral was held at St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, attracting mourners from all over the world.
Ever since Israel launched its extinction campaign in Gaza in October 2023, it has maintained close and consistent video contact with colonized Palestinians.
He offered wider prayer, encouragement and solidarity to Gaza’s small Christian community and the besieged population.
The only Western voice in their defense, he mourns in Gaza with deep grief – a part of Israel celebrates his death.
In his final months, the Argentine Pope increasingly condemned Israel’s war against the Palestinians. He condemned the extinction of civilians in Gaza. They have been killed tens of thousands, and the crime is frankly explained. “This is cruel and this is not war.”
At the Nativity Scene and Christmas Tree inauguration at St. Peter’s Square last December, he exhibited a baby Jesus wrapped in kefier in solidarity with the Palestinians.
At the beginning of 2024 he wrote: “According to some experts, what’s happening in Gaza is characterized by genocide. We need to carefully investigate whether it fits the technical definitions set out by legal scholars and international organizations.”
The Pope again raised concerns after Israel resumed its war of genocide last month. “We are saddened by the resumption of Israel’s heavy bombing in the Gaza Strip, causing many deaths and injuries.
Changes in relations
The Vatican relationship with Palestinians has changed dramatically over the past millennium.
Pope Francis is far from Pope Urban II, who declared the need to conquer Palestine by launching the first crusade in November 1095. Addressing European converts to European Christian religion, the Crusades declared:
Enter the path to the sacred grave. Take the land from the evil race and submit it to yourself… Therefore, this royal city, located at the heart of the world, is now held by his enemies and submit to people who do not know God to the worship of the Pagans. Therefore, she seeks to be released and will not cease to plead for you to come to her aid. She asks for her successor, especially from you.
The Pope Urban tried to “rescue” them from Muslims, as most of the indigenous peoples of Jerusalem at the time were Arabic-speaking Christians, or what the Crusaders called “Suryani.”
In contrast, Pope Francis refuses to conquer the Palestinians, but to protect Palestinian Christians and Muslims in Gaza from the conquest and genocide of Israel.
In the 17th century, the Vatican’s new evangelization project, known as Propaganda Fide, contained Palestine.
A German priest named Dominicus German de Silesia visited Palestine to learn Arabic and rewind the Bible into Arabic. Arabic is at least the Arabic translation of the Bible dates back to at least the 8th century. It dates back at least to the 8th century. Still, missionary work remained limited.
Founded by the Crusades in 1099 and dismantled after the final expulsion of the Franks in 1291, the Latin patriarchy of Jerusalem was reestablished in Palestine under the Ottoman Empire in 1847.
Latin Revival
The revival of Latin patriarchy also increased French missionary activities. Apart from converting Arab Christians in Syria and Palestinians in the 17th century, the goal was also to induce the Eastern Catholic Church to accept the pope’s authority over the church.
Missionary activities converting activities on behalf of the Latin Church were the most successful among Palestinian orthodox merchants.
In the wake of the Crimean War, French-sponsored Latin schools and charities have been increased by leaps and boundaries, including Les de Saint-Joseph, Les Soux de Saint-Vincent de Paul and Les de La Charite.
The College des Freres School was first established in Jerusalem in 1875 and reflects the growing influence of French Catholic education in Palestine. My family is an orthodox Christian, but my father attended the College Dureles branch in Jaffa before Nakba and later at the Amman branch after Nakba.
The attitude of the Pope shaking back today, especially after Zionist crusades conquered Palestine and succeeded in establishing the state of Israel in 1948.
Italian Pope Paul VI, who reigned from 1963 to 1978, visited East Jerusalem, where Jordan held it at the time, and spent several hours in Nazareth not until January 1964 (it was designated as part of the Palestinian state by the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan, but was occupied by Israel after 1948).
The rest of his two-day visit was spent in Jordan. It was the first time a ruler had visited Palestine. At the time, the Vatican had no recognition of Israel.
Diplomatic Change
By signing the Oslo Agreement in September 1993, the Holy See established full diplomatic relations with Israel in December of that year, and then replaced the embassy in January 1994.
In March 2000, the right-wing Polish anti-communist Pope John Paul II formed an alliance with the US administration of Ronald Reagan, visiting Israel, where he toured the Jad Vashem Holocaust Museum and prayed at the Western Wall known to the Brestinians.
He also traveled to Bethlehem. There, Jaser Arafat, the leader of the time, welcomed him with a warm welcome. He only spent one day on the West Bank, where he held a mass at Manger Square. “Welcome to our land,” Arafat told John Paul at a formal reception with Palestinian leaders, diplomats and clergy.
Nine years later in May 2009, Pope Benedict XVI joined Hitler’s youth as a teenager and later served in the German army – arriving on a tour of Jordan, Israel and the West Bank.
During his visit to Israel, he spoke about the horrors and crimes in his hometown of Germany. The Pope urged Israelis and Palestinians to “live peacefully in their own homelands within a safe and internationally recognized border.”
Following his speech at a scripted interfaith ceremony in East Jerusalem, Teisiah Tamimi, Palestinian chief of the Muslim Sharia courts in the West Bank and Gaza, grabbed the microphone and criticized Israel in Arabic for the many applause in the audience. The Pope did not respond, but the Vatican denounced, saying, “This intervention is a direct denial of what dialogue should be.”
While in Bethelehem, Benedict criticized Israel’s apartheid barrier and expressed his support for the Palestinians in Gaza.
As expected, Israel was horrified. The Pope offered the Nativity Church a large relief of Jesse trees carved by Polish artist Czeslaw Dzwigaj as a gift to the Palestinians in Bethlehem.
Palestinian Solidarity
When Pope Francis visited in 2014, he created an unplanned stop on the apartheid wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
According to his driver, they were driving near a part of a graffiti-covered wall comparing Bethlehem and the Warsaw Ghetto when the Pope asked them to let go.
The image of him “excited the Palestinians and angered the Israelis” at the location.
In his final public message on Easter Sunday, Pope Francis once again spoke about the war with the Palestinians and the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza are hungry for Israel to block all food supplies now.
The death of Pope Francis, who was caring for the Palestinians, won him the official Israeli Shadenfreude, who condemned his opposition to his massacre.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has removed Paith Dol’s posts about the late Pope from its official X (Twitter) account, and directed missions around the world to do the same. He also issued an internal order to the ambassador to not sign a condolence book at the Vatican Embassy.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not send a message of sadness, but Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s position was merely honorable and ritualistic.
However, despite all his support for the people of Gaza facing the military machinery of the Genocide Israel, Pope Francis imposed no sanctions on Israel.
He did not expel the Israeli ambassador from the Vatican and did not withdraw the Vatican ambassador from Israel. States like Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, Belize, Chile, Chad, Turkey, Brazil and South Africa withdraw their entire ambassadors or diplomatic missions, but the suspension of diplomatic relations was not considered.
Whatever support the Pope might have provided to the Palestinians with his personal touch, it was never translated into diplomatic circles.
Despite his personal compassion for the Palestinians, Pope Francis ultimately remained constrained by Western political structures that have supported conquest and colonialism for centuries. His death may be lamented by the survivors of Gaza, but the institutions that allowed their ongoing extinction will survive.