Australian bishops call for peace in Gaza

Life in Gaza is desolate, dangerous, and unremittingly bleak for its 2.1 million people.  

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross recently told the BBC that Gaza was “hell on earth.”  

“We cannot continue to watch what is happening. It’s surpassing any acceptable, legal, moral, and humane standard. The level of destruction, the level of suffering,” said ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric. “More importantly, the fact that we are watching a people entirely stripped of its human dignity. It should really shock our collective conscience.”   

Late last month, Pope Leo XIV posted on X (formerly Twitter) a searing plea for peace: “From Gaza, the cries of parents rise to heaven ever more intensely as they clutch the lifeless bodies of their children, searching for food and shelter from bombs. I renew my appeal to leaders: cease fire, release all hostages, and fully respect international humanitarian law!” 

Australia’s Catholic bishops have supported Pope Leo XIV by decrying the “worrying and painful” situation in Gaza.  

The chair of the Bishops Commission for Social Justice, Mission and Service, Townsville Bishop Tim Harris said that: ”We support his appeal to ‘allow the entry of dignified humanitarian aid and to put an end to the hostilities, whose heartbreaking price is paid by the children, elderly, and the sick’, as well as the safe return of hostages.”    

The Melkite eparch (bishop) for Australia, New Zealand and All Oceania, Robert Rabbat, says that the distant fighting has touched Palestinian Christians here as well. Families have been separated, with some sheltering in a Catholic parish in Gaza, and the rest here in Australia. The Melkite Charitable Foundation has received many requests for help from relatives of Palestinian Christians who are stuck in the sealed enclave.  

Bishop Rabbat, who lives in Sydney, told The Catholic Weekly that the situation in the Holy Land was dire, but that he has hope. “We, as people of faith, we cannot, and we will never throw up our hands, because we have hope. We have faith. This is the Holy Land, and we believe in miracles.” 

“We have eight billion people. Can’t we find a handful of people who can sit down together and talk and find a solution? As they say, we are three monotheistic religions in the Holy Land. With prayers, there could be a miracle.” 

And if any year is a year for miracles, Bishop Rabbat said, it is 2025. Jews celebrated the feast of Shavuot on the first three days of June, commemorating the revelation of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. Christians celebrated Pentecost, the “birthday” of the Church, on 8 June. And Muslims celebrated Eid al-Adha on the same weekend, a feast which honours Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his only son Isaac.  

The coincidence of solemn feasts of the three monotheistic religions of the Holy Land in a single week seldom happens. Surely this is significant, says Bishop Rabbat.  

“If you meet the Jewish people, the first word they’ll tell you is shalom, which means peace. Muslim will say, assalamu alaikum  which is peace, and we repeat the words of our Lord, peace be with you.  

“I do hope on this very holy week for Jewish people, for Muslims and for Christians, that the highest-ranking religious leaders, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Sunni, Shia and Jewish, will call for an immediate peace.”