An Open Letter to the Pope

By amplifying selective narratives, the Vatican is distorting the realities of war and reinforcing dangerous biases that undermine efforts toward genuine peace.

Pope Francis (right) with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2023 (photo: Palácio do Planalto/Wikipedia)

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Your Holiness,

It is with respect for the papal office and its historic dedication to peace and justice that I write to express concern regarding your recent comments on Israel and Gaza.

As a leader of profound influence and moral authority, your words resonate across continents and faiths. Yet, in their resonance, they risk amplifying a narrative that overlooks complexity and nuance, and dare I say, engages in an uncomfortable double standard that is unique to the detriment of the Jewish state.

While many nations, including those led by authoritarian regimes, engage in conflicts that cause immeasurable civilian suffering, the scrutiny placed upon Israel often far exceeds that of its counterparts.

This asymmetry in moral judgment not only distorts the perception of Israel’s defensive actions but also diminishes the broader credibility of the Church’s moral compass when it selectively highlights the Jewish state’s faults while overlooking the provocations and atrocities of its adversaries.

Such selectivity reinforces dangerous biases that fuel antisemitism and undermine efforts toward a just and balanced peace.

What’s more, when Your Holiness speaks of Israel’s “so much cruelty” in Gaza, one cannot help but wonder — does the cruelty of Hamas escape your notice? This is a group that has turned hospitals into jihadist command centers and kindergartens into missile launch pads.

Gaza’s civilians, whom Hamas claims to protect, are little more than human shields in a macabre chess game. While Israel targets terrorists, Hamas deliberately targets civilians (including children, women, and the elderly) — and hides behind its own people when the inevitable response comes. Is this not cruelty in its most distilled form?

You lament that, in Gaza, “children were bombed.” But may I gently remind Your Holiness that the children of Gaza are habitually educated to hate and to kill Jews. In schools and mosques, they are fed a steady diet of incitement, glorifying violence and martyrdom. Should we not mourn the theft of their innocence long before the bombs fall?

Furthermore, you describe Israel’s actions as “cruelty, not war.” I fear, Holy Father, that this mischaracterization does disservice to the nature of conflict itself. War, by its very nature, is cruel.

Yet, there is a critical distinction between those who take painstaking measures to avoid civilian casualties (Israel) and those who deliberately invite them (Hamas). If Israel’s actions are “immoral,” as Your Holiness suggested regarding Lebanon, then what terminology remains for Hezbollah — a group whose stated mission is eradication of the Jewish state altogether?

At the end of November, Your Holiness took this rhetoric a step further, denouncing the “invader’s arrogance” in both Ukraine and “Palestine.” With due reverence, might I highlight that such a statement aligns the Holy See with narratives that blur the moral landscape?

Ukraine is a sovereign nation under siege; Gaza, by contrast, is governed by those who initiated hostilities on October 7th, massacring 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage — while raining rockets on Israeli civilians. The parallel is tenuous at best, misleading at worst.

Equally troubling is the excerpt from your recent book, in which international experts are cited suggesting that Israel’s actions in Gaza “have the characteristics of genocide.” With all due respect, Holy Father, to borrow a phrase, this is not war — it is fiction. There is no genocide in Gaza, unless one contorts the definition beyond recognition. Israel’s population grows. Gaza’s population grows. If this is genocide, it is surely the least effective in history.

Moreover, it is essential to recall the Vatican’s own historical record during the Holocaust. Despite the Church’s proclamations of neutrality, the Vatican’s silence and lack of decisive action as millions of Jews were systematically exterminated remains a stain on its moral legacy. Pope Pius XII’s reluctance to publicly denounce Nazi atrocities allowed evil to flourish in the shadows.

While post-war efforts attempted to rewrite this chapter, we Jews remember it for what it was. As the world faces modern iterations of antisemitism, Your Holiness carries the moral responsibility to ensure that the Vatican does not pave the way for injustice once again. Historia magistra vitae est. (Latin for “History is the teacher of life.”)

Lastly, it is hard to overlook your participation in recent events that frame Jesus as a Palestinian Arab. While the sentiment of solidarity may be well-intentioned, the historical Jesus was, of course, a Jewish man from Judea. To cast him otherwise risks furthering a political narrative that distorts the very foundations of both the Jewish and Christian faiths.

One must wonder if such reimagining is done in the spirit of reconciliation or out of a desire to reshape inconvenient truths into more palatable political statements. This, Holy Father, is no small theological footnote. It is the repurposing of one of the most foundational figures in human history to fit the contours of a contemporary conflict.

The echoes of this narrative ripple far beyond ecclesiastical discourse; they weave themselves into the fabric of modern geopolitics, where identities and histories are already fragile and contested.

To claim Jesus as a Palestinian Arab may earn brief applause from certain quarters, but it diminishes the profound Jewish roots of Christianity itself. It brushes aside the significance of a man who lived as part of a Jewish community under Roman rule, who read the Torah, and whose teachings are steeped in Jewish tradition.

To forget this is to forget the shared inheritance that binds the Abrahamic faiths. It risks alienating Jewish communities who see this as not only historical revisionism but as part of a broader trend to erase or diminish Jewish connections to the land.

Your Holiness, I suspect you recognize the weight of symbols and the potency of narrative. Words spoken from Vatican events do not merely drift into the Roman sky; they reverberate globally, shaping perceptions and, often, policy. To reinterpret the past is not inherently wrong — historians do so often — but when such reinterpretation borders on erasure, it becomes a disservice to truth and an obstacle to peace.

If we are to genuinely aspire toward harmony in the Holy Land, let it be anchored in respect for the intricate and interwoven histories of its peoples, not in the convenient simplification of one at the expense of another.

I urge you to consider the delicate balance that must be maintained when addressing such sensitive matters. Advocacy for peace should not necessitate the rewriting of identities. The path to reconciliation is not paved with selective memory but with the courage to embrace the complexity of the past and the integrity to honor it. In this, perhaps, lies a more enduring foundation for peace — one built not on borrowed narratives, but on a shared commitment to truth.

Holy Father, your commitment to peace is admirable, but peace is not achieved by one-sided reproach. It is fostered through clarity, honesty, and the courage to call out evil wherever it resides. I urge you to consider the full spectrum of suffering in the Holy Land and to extend your moral authority in ways that reflect the complex truths of this enduring conflict.

Fiat justitia ruat caelum. (Latin for: “Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.”)

The pursuit of justice should remain steadfast and unwavering, regardless of the political or social fallout. We must uphold the necessity of moral clarity and impartiality, even in the face of difficult and polarizing issues.

Yours in earnest reflection,
A Jew in Israel

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