For 18 months, Francis called every day to the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip

For the last a year and a half, Pope Francis called every day to the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip. He assured his prayer and blessed the faithful. He condemned Israeli attacks, and at the same time criticized anti -Semitism and called for the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas. During the Easter homily, he called for a full suspension of weapons for the last time.

From the third day of the war to the penultimate day of his life Pope Francis Every evening, at 20 o'clock, he called the Holy Family Church in Gaza. In this way he established a unique relationship with the clergy and faithful the only Roman Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip.

– Every day the Pope called us and asked for peace, constant prayer, blessing for all residents of Gaza and all Palestinians – says Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, priest of the Holy Family parish in Gaza.

– The Pope talked to us like a father who cares about his children. He calmed us down, checked if we ate, whether we had something to drink or have medicine, how children feel, how mothers are doing – says George Antone.

The Pope criticized Israel's attacks on gauze

This relationship brought the Pope closer to the fate of civilians in the Gaza Strip. Francis expressed an open criticism of Israeli attacks on this region. – Children were bombed yesterday, this is not a war, it is cruelty. I say it with a wounded heart – commented the pope in December.

The Pope tried to suppress the manifestations of anti -Semitism and called for the release of Israeli hostages. He even did it in the Easter homily. Then he called for the last time to suspend their weapons.

In Gaza, in the Holy Family Church, a community that was surrounded by the Pope's care, prays for the soul of Francis.

– My message to the world is to look at the gauze with the same eyes that Pope Francis looked at at her. Through the eyes of truth, justice, peace, love. The eyes that saw the inhabitants of Gaza as deserving life with dignity, justice and independence – says George Antone.

Prayer against the plague of indifference flows from the church in Gaza, which Pope Francis called the greatest bane and disease of our time.

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