Palestinian Christian communities in Gaza and the West Bank have mourned the death of Pope Francis, who consistently supported their plight throughout his papacy, but especially in the last 18 months of his life.
He was “not just our pope, he was our brother, our friend, our dear friend for Bethlehem,” proclaimed Tony Tabash, a Catholic souvenir store owner in the biblical birthplace of Jesus.
On Monday evening, Catholics in Gaza held a mass for Pope Francis at the Holy Family Church, the only Catholic church in the enclave.
“I was very sad, and my feelings were sad, because the Pope was our biggest support after God in this war,” said 19-year-old Suheil Abu Dawoud, adding that “he was always like a balm for our wounds and he was always telling us to be strong.”
Pope Francis “is very close to the Christian community of Gaza, not only the Christians of Gaza but all the people of Gaza, and all the Holy Land,” said Father Gabriele Romanielli of the Holy Family Church.
The pope’s nightly ritual
Pope Francis was a fervent advocate of peace in Gaza, praying for an end to the war until his final hours.
Since the outbreak of the war, the pope had a frequent nightly ritual: he would call the Holy Family Church to see how the nearly 600 people huddled inside were coping amid the devastating war.
The small act of compassion made a big impression on Gaza’s tiny Christian community and was why he was remembered as a beloved father figure in the war-torn territory.
Romanielli said his last call came on Saturday. “He asked us to pray and gave us a blessing and thanked us for all the service for peace.”
In his last public appearance on Easter Sunday, the pontiff renewed his plea for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, expressing his “closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people.”
He added: “I think of the people of Gaza and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.”
The pope was also an advocate of interfaith relations and urged Hamas to release the dozens of Israeli hostages it is holding and condemned growing global antisemitism.
“I appeal to the warring parties: Call on a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of starving people that aspires to a future of peace!” Pope Francis said in his final address.
In 2014, during the pope’s first official visit to the Holy Land, he made an unscheduled stop to pray at the wall that separates Israel from the West Bank in Bethlehem.
The unprecedented gesture, as his aides conceded later, was a “profound spiritual moment” against a symbol of division and conflict.
It was made after Pope Francis made an appeal to both sides to end a conflict that he said was “increasingly unacceptable.”
In the past year and a half of war, the pope became increasingly outspoken in his criticism of the Israeli military. A month into the war, he urged an investigation into whether Israel’s war amounted to genocide — a charge Israel vehemently denies.
In December, Francis expressed his pain thinking of Gaza, “of such cruelty, to the machine-gunning of children, to the bombing of schools and hospitals.”
The next month, he called the ongoing humanitarian crisis “very serious and shameful.”
The Holy Land’s Christian community has dwindled over the decades, with only 1,000 Christians living in Gaza, an overwhelmingly Muslim territory, according to the US State Department’s international religious freedom report for 2024.
The report says the majority of Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox but they also include other Christians, including Roman Catholics.
