ROME — Rome’s chief rabbi sharply criticized Pope Francis over the pontiff’s recent ramping up of criticism against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, in an unusually forceful speech during an annual Catholic-Jewish dialogue event.
Francis has unfairly focused his attention on Israel compared to other ongoing world conflicts, including those in Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia, Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, spiritual leader of Rome’s Jewish community since 2001, said Thursday.
“Selective indignation … weakens the pope’s strength,” said Di Segni.
“A pope cannot divide the world into children and stepchildren and must denounce the sufferings of all,” he said. “This is exactly what the Pope does not do.”
Francis, leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian terror group Hamas. Last week, he called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “very serious and shameful.”
A complex ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas emerged on Wednesday, and is scheduled to start on Sunday.
The war in Gaza was sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and massacre in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were seized as hostages as thousands of Hamas-led terrorists rampaged across Israel’s Gaza border communities.
Pope Francis presides over the Christmas Eve mass at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on December 24, 2024 (Tiziana FABI / AFP)
Relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism have improved in recent decades, after centuries of persecution. The event on Thursday, held at a Catholic university, was organized to mark the 36th annual World Day of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue.
One of the organizers, Rev. Marco Gnavi, a Catholic priest, expressed surprise at Di Segni’s comments.
He said he felt “discomfort” because of the rabbi’s words. “You can’t ask us not to suffer both with you and with others,” said the priest.
Francis has consistently called for peace since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, and has met frequently with the family members of those taken hostage and repeatedly called for their release.
However, a letter he wrote to Middle Eastern Catholics on the first anniversary of the attack never mentioned Hamas by name or made explicit reference to its atrocities, including the hostages. The letter also quoted passages from the Gospel of John that have historically been used to fuel religious antisemitism.
At the end of November, he went one step further and denounced “the invader’s arrogance” in both “Ukraine” and “Palestine,” breaking with the Holy See’s modern tradition of neutrality.
In a book excerpt published in November, the pontiff said that some international experts had posited that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”
Israel has angrily rejected his remarks, saying that they were disconnected from the context of Israel’s fight against terrorism and amounted to double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people.
It’s not (only) about you.
Supporting The Times of Israel isn’t a transaction for an online service, like subscribing to Netflix. The ToI Community is for people like you who care about a common good: ensuring that balanced, responsible coverage of Israel continues to be available to millions across the world, for free.
Sure, we’ll remove all ads from your page and you’ll unlock access to some excellent Community-only content. But your support gives you something more profound than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.
Join the Times of Israel Community
Join our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You’re a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel – to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘272776440645465’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
