04 September 2025

A Pope for Gaza

My preface -

Father Frank Gelli is an Anglican vicar who, unlike the hierarchy of the 'established church' of Britain - that is the Church of England, feels the terrible pain of Palestinian suffering. This is within the holocaust of Gaza that has been grafted on to the genocide of the native Palestinian people. This was started formally in 1948 but the intention was there for many decades previously and the process well underway.

Britain, and ''Christian'' Zionists at the helm, were central in this most evil movement. It was based on believing that this essentially pastoral people with an advanced intelligentsia in the cities of Palestine, were untermenschen. This was the word that the Nazis used in order to dehumanise those they culled as they advanced to the east with massive force. The Slavs and the Jews were the target peoples, and those inconvenient 'communists'. My current definition of fascism captures this barbarity - 'the fascist is the sub-human who delights in crushing the life out of humans - as in Gaza'.

The ice cold 'thinking' is represented in this quote. The father of Israel - not a country, David Ben Gurion/ David Grun said <https://imeu.org/article/4259/> "After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine"

Father Frank implores the new Pope to go to Gaza. Imagine Pope Leo XIV traveling from Lodd airport to Erez, crossing into the wasteland, and holding a dear child who had lost sight or limbs from bombs the US and Germany provided.

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A Pope for Gaza.    Father Frank Gelli in London implores the Pope to act to stop the murder and the maiming

HOLY FATHER,

Forgive my daring but saving the lives of over two million children of God is my goal in writing this. Because I feel you are the man who can do that.

The Israeli Army is launching new deadly attacks on Gaza City, forcing more displacement of starving, exhausted Palestinian people. The Israelis have killed more than 63.000 Gazans – many of them women and children – over two years. It seems that the Netanyahu government wants to drive the whole population out of their land. An horrendous crime which you can stop and prevent. How? Holy Father, I beg you on my knees, go to Gaza and stop the aggressors!

Impossible? Yet one of your predecessors, Paul VI, in 1978 offered himself as hostage to the Italian Red Brigades in order to save his friend, kidnapped former PM Aldo Moro. The Brigades refused the offer and Moro was murdered. I felt back then that Pope Paul had acted in a true Christ-like manner. As Jesus of Nazareth died for us, so that Pontiff was willing to die for his friend. His example is perhaps worthy meditating on...

Unlikely the Israelis would halt their savage, murderous attacks, even if you stood in their path, shielding the poor people of Gaza with your defenceless body? I am naïve enough to believe that even Netanyahu might think twice before affronting 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide by killing the Pope. Your sacrificial action could potentially save Gaza from utter destruction.

But Gazans are overwhelmingly Muslims, I imagine someone objecting. So what? One of a Pope’s official titles is ‘Vicar of Christ’. That means that you literally represent Jesus Christ on earth. And Christ died for all men. Not for any particular racial or ethnic group but for all humanity, of which Muslims are part. Muslims too are part of your universal flock. Besides, there is a Gaza Orthodox Church of St Porphyrius. The Israelis bombed but there are perhaps a few hundred still sheltering nearby. Are they not worth caring for?

A Pope travels to Gaza. Many would call the idea quixotic, even absurd. Yet haven’t the deeds of Jesus of Nazareth often been judged as crazy? His driving the merchants out of the Hebrew Temple with a whip; his lambasting the Scribes and Pharisees; his calling the powerful enemies of his religious establishment ‘a synagogue of Satan’; his accepting the Crucifixion...And so on. American theologians have compared some of Jesus words to the utterances of a Zen master. A piffling comparison yet Zen teachers can act in seemingly crazy but effective ways. The Pope in Gaza also might seem mad. They will charge you with antisemitism, you’ll be besmirched, President Trump will abuse you as anti-American (something to boast about, methinks) but...You could save the suffering Palestinians, Deo Volente.

Holy Father, I am incredibly arrogant in writing to you. I am not a Roman Catholic but a marginal, insignificant, aging Anglican priest. My state Church is feeble, corrupted by compromise with the powers that be, secularism and pusillanimity. In Catholic eyes I may count as an inferior kind of Christian. How dare I address you so boldly? Dear Pope Leo, I will say that this is a rare case where the end justifies the means. Look, if you go to Gaza I will join you, I swear it!

Dear Holy Father, I beg you: save Gaza! Save Palestine!

Revd Frank Julian Gelli