ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 10, 2023 / 09:30 am (CNA).
Father Gabriel Romanelli, an Argentine priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) who serves as pastor of Holy Family Parish in Gaza, shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, a statement about the situation following the Hamas attack on Israel, which, he said, “continues to be very bad.”
The surprise attack by the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip began in the early hours of Oct. 7 by land, sea, and air. Countless missiles hit Israeli cities, where civilians were also kidnapped.
The first offensive left at least 40 dead and 700 injured, according to the first official reports.
Israel is “at war,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the country responded with air strikes on the Gaza Strip.
Two days after the conflict began, Romanelli told ACI Prensa from Bethlehem, where he is stranded until he will be able to get through to return to the parish: “We have never seen things like this time.”
“All of our men and women religious in this part of the Holy Land of Palestine and Israel are okay,” he said, although he acknowledged that the mission in Gaza “is the one that is going through very difficult times.”
“In the parish we have taken in more than 80 Christians and other Muslim neighbors of our school have requested accommodation there,” the priest said. “There are hundreds of dead and thousands of injured among the population,” he added.
Recalling a saying of Pius XII, which St. John Paul II also repeated, the priest asked for prayers for peace, because “nothing is lost with peace, everything can be lost with war.”
Finally, he expressed his gratitude for the closeness, concern, and prayers, along with the “hundreds of messages” he receives every day. “From here I continue to pray and work hard for our Catholic mission in Gaza, for the good of all,” he concluded.
In a statement to the Argentine newspaper La Nación, the priest, who has lived in the Middle East for 28 years, said that he was in Bethlehem when the attack was launched after participating in Rome in the consistory in which Pope Francis created the patriarch of Jerusalem a cardinal, and he is unable — for the moment — to return to his parish.
Speaking to La Nación, Romanelli said: “We anticipated that something could happen, since in May we had a five-day war. [War] was already in the air, it was certainly a very violent year and even though the May hostilities had ceased, the entire area did not look good.”
However, he noted, “as much as we suspected that something was going to happen, more by way of experience, more because of what’s in the air, in the environment, I never imagined something like this.”
The priest said he has a responsibility “for many people, sick people, families, we have more than 10 Caritas clinics there that have already been prepared for an emergency for several months” but “paradoxically, today they haven’t been active because there is so much confusion that it’s not known where the needs are. But all the groups are ready there to receive [patients] tomorrow in case there are more injuries, as is unfortunately expected.”
“I want to hope and I ask God to stop everything,” the priest told the newspaper. “There is nothing impossible for God. But, watching the news, there are signs that suggest that it’s not going to be over quickly… I hope it doesn’t go on any longer, that it’s over quickly, but I have a feeling that it is going to be something longer and more intense.”
Romanelli said he hopes there will be a truce and that a humanitarian corridor can be established to help the victims of the conflict.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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And we urgently need a Synod on Synodality because?
Yes, pray for the innocent babies, mothers and the elderly being slaughtered, but we need religious legions to “walk” into Gaza and demand the release of hostages. Popes, Imams. Rabbis, Ayatollahs… The use of force is not the right answer.
They also need another religious legions to “walk” into Moscow to plead to the war criminal, Putin, to stop the insane brutal war on Ukraine.
A nice idea, but it puts me in mind of a quip by Stalin during WW II in response to a suggestion that the Pope, Pius XII, could act as a peacemaker: How many divisions does the Pope have?
Correction to my comment: It was made by Stalin to French foreign minister Pierre Laval in 1935. It’s still apt, however, since I think that Vladimir Putin would respond similar to what you propose.
Stalin ignored the Miracle of the Vistula that repealed the communist invasion of Poland in 1919. Reportedly the the communist forces were terrorized by Poland’s Black Madonna spearheading the the counterattack lead by the Student’s Brigade.
Gotta look that one up. Thanks. Today 10.13 is the 105th anniversary of the first apparition at Fatima. Same day the fatwa issued by the Muslim cleric for more violence. Pray. Pray. Pray.
“The use of force is not the right answer”.
Unfortunately, force is the ONLY thing those animals understand. You, I, and everyone wants this to stop. The only way to make that happen is to take away their will to fight…with force.
A fella named Doug Patton once said, “Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil.” He is correct. Evil must be destroyed.
Evil can reside in our own hearts also.
Self defense is a good thing but it’s something we need to be very careful about.
I understand that these war-against-humanity evil criminals must be repelled with force. However, why not add divine intervention through the physical presence of God’s earthly representatives?
“Imams…Ayatollahs…”
Can you find an example of aeven a single Imam or Ayatollah who has spoken out against the terrorism? Or is likely to ask for the release of the hostages, much less walk to Gaza to do so?
How about those religious leaders start their walk in Washington D.C. Our own “uncle Joe” is more of a killer than Stalin, HAMAS, and the IDF combined when you take into account the amount of children who fall victim to abortions and healthy youngsters maimed by the “sex-change” butchers due to Joe’s policies. The numbers on both sides of the Gaza Strip border pale in comparison with that…
Let’s never forget that the fundamental cause of all war is sin. Fail to acknowledge the sin in one’s own heart, come into contrition and then ask for God’s forgiveness results in endless war. Failure to acknowledge God will always lead to sin…and war. Failure to acknowledge God sets the individual up as his or her own judge about right and wrong. This is why the failure to proclaim the Gospel leaves man in a perilous state.
Insightful article on this conflict by Julia Duin in Get Religion.
Time for the people with power to show mercy.
Gerald, and what about the mercy that Hamas showed Israeli babies that were beheaded? These people commit atrocities in the name of their cause and then scream they are being subject to horrific crimes when they are retaliated against in like manner. Let us face it, anyone that is not Islamic is an infidel and that is how they look at it. May God give us His mercy.
There’s a lot of mass hysteria about “beheaded babies”, and no proof that it has happened. The narrative “Israel holy, Hamas very bad” is the only acceptable one at the time.
“Hamas very bad “is accurate.
You’re only joking, right? About the mass hysteria over beheaded babies. Please tell us you were only being sarcastic…that you really didn’t intend to tell us that stories of these acts of barbarism were contrived by some right wing ideologue. Please….
Actually, she may have a good point, deacon Edward. “they’re killing babies” is a common cry of a scoundrel trying to incite popular support for war. Recall this one:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1994/02/26/the-kuwaiti-incubator-hoax/35b1e882-f796-4acb-a106-9280a7dda521/
or this one:
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/555503/JacobiAvaThesis.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
Today, most people are ignorant of the fact that, for example, in WWI, it was the French who first used the chemical warfare against the Prussians, not the other way around. Most people also fail to remember that Stern Gang and many other “jewish freedom fighters” were responsible for a lot of atrocities committed against local population during the years preceding and following the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
Remember that it takes two to tango and Agnieszka was probably merely pointing out that the media narrative portraying Israel as an innocent victim is not entirely truthful, to put it mildly.
That is not to say that HAMAS did the right thing. Far from it. An atrocity is an atrocity no matter who commits it, but honesty is a two way street, so we should condemn the atrocities committed by the Israelis throughout the years just as strongly as we condemn those of others, especially since the Jews living in Israel now are, in a large part, descendants of the Jewish communists who committed atrocities throughout the eastern part of Europe during the communist reign of terror in countries such as Russia, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and many others, so there’s a proven history of atrocities on that side of the coin as well as on the other side and it would be nice if the world acknowledged that history for once…
So all the photos and eyewitness testimony and a long history of their having done so before and having boasted about it with pride doesn’t constitute evidence for you?
Hamas hides its operations in places like hospitals and orphanages and then accuses others of war crimes when they are targeted.
This really isn’t about Jews and Arabs it’s about terrorists and those who fund them.
The killing cycles in the Middle East will continue until both sides forgive and love their enemies.
Now that’s something to strive for!
I wholeheartedly agree!