VATICAN (SE): “Anything” for their freedom and to have “those children back home,” the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Cardinal Pizzaballa told journalists on October 16, Vatican News reported. Expressing his concerns and calling for the release of children held hostage by Hamas militants in Gaza. The cardinal declared his willingness offer himself in exchange for the hostages saying, “Anything, if this can lead to freedom and bring those children back home, no problem. On my part, absolute willingness.”
Cardinal Pizzaballa also referenced mediation offers from the Holy See noting, “We have offered our readiness at least to try to bring the hostages back, at least some of them, this is being attempted. It is very difficult because, for mediation, you need to have interlocutors. And at this moment, it’s not possible to talk to Hamas.”
The cardinal, in an October 11 message, called for a Day of Prayer and Fasting for Peace on October 17.
“In this time of sorrow and dismay, we do not want to remain helpless. We cannot let death and its sting ([1 Coringhtians 15:55] be the only word we hear,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said in his message. “That is why we feel the need to pray, to turn our hearts to God the Father. Only in this way can we draw the strength and serenity needed to endure these hard times, by turning to Him, in prayer and intercession, to implore and cry out to God amidst this anguish.”
The cardinal emphasised the importance of addressing the root causes of the conflict, highlighting the need to consider the Palestinian issue, freedom, dignity, and the future of the Palestinian people. He called on the international community to play a more active role in mediating a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, emphasising that private, non-public negotiations might yield more fruitful results.
Speaking during the Angelus on October 15, Pope Francis said he is following the situation in the Holy Land “with much pain, and is thinking in particular of the children and the elderly, Vatican News reported.
“I renew my call for the release of the hostages and I strongly demand that children, the elderly, women and all civilians are not victims of the conflict,” he said.
Pope Francis appeals for peace and restraint in Israel-Hamas war
The pope renewed calls to respect Humanitarian Law, “especially in Gaza where there is an urgent need to guarantee humanitarian corridors and to rescue the entire population.”
He lamented, “So many have already died: please do not spill any more innocent blood, neither in the Holy land, nor in Ukraine, nor anywhere else.”
The pope invited all believers to join the Church in the Holy Land on October 17 for the Day of Prayer and Fasting for Peace, called by the , Pierbattista Pizzaball.
AsiaNews reported that the heads of five Eastern Catholic Churches in the Middle East and North Africa, who have been in Rome since the beginning of October for Synod on Synodality, joined together on October 11 to ask their Churches not to be deterred and to “intensify their prayers to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, through the intercession of his Mother, the Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace, so that peace may return to the land where he Himself was born.”
The religious leaders included Syrian Catholic Patriarch Ignace Youssif III Younan; Maronite Patriarch, Béchara Boutros Cardinal Raï; Chaldean Patriarch, Luis Raphael Cardinal Sako; Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak; and Raphael Bedros XXI Minassian, Catholicos Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians.
The patriarchs appealed to the “great powers” and the international community to “work together to put an end to this destructive war and to establish the just and lasting peace that our peoples have long sought, by implementing the international resolutions adopted by the United Nations and recognising the dignity of peoples and their right to self-determination.”
