Rome Newsroom, Sep 15, 2024 / 09:36 am (CNA).
During his Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis appealed for the release of the remaining Hamas hostages, as he remembered 23-year-old American Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five others whose bodies were recovered by Israeli military in Gaza last month.
“I am praying for the victims and continue to be close to all of the families of the hostages,” the pope said on September 15, after praying the traditional Marian prayer.
The bodies of Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Terushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, and Carmel Gat were found in a tunnel in Gaza by Israel Defense Forces on Aug. 30. The IDF said postmortems indicate the hostages were killed by two gunmen using two separate weapons on the evening of Aug. 29.
Speaking from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis recalled meeting Rachel Goldberg, the mother of Goldberg-Polin, together with other family members of Israeli hostages, at the Vatican in November 2023. “I was struck by her humanity. I accompany her in this moment,” the pontiff said.
“Cease the conflict in Palestine and Israel, cease the violence, cease the hatred, release the hostages, continue negotiations, and find peace solutions,” he added.
Before the Angelus, Pope Francis gave a short reflection on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Mark. In the passage, Jesus asks his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”
“Peter answers on behalf of all the group, saying, ‘You are the Christ,’” the pope said. “However, when Jesus starts to talk about the suffering and death that await him, the same Peter objects, and Jesus harshly rebukes him: ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men.’”
Francis said this scene prompts us too, to ask ourselves what it means to really know Jesus.
“The words with which Peter responds are ‘right,’ but his way of thinking has not changed,” the pontiff commented. “He still has to change his mindset; he still has to convert. This is an important message for us too.”
“Indeed, we too have learned something about God, we know the doctrine, we recite the prayers correctly and, perhaps, we respond well to the question ‘Who is Jesus for you?’ with some formula we learned at catechism. But are we sure that this means really knowing Jesus?” he said.
The pope underlined that really knowing the Lord means not just knowing something about him but actually following him and having a relationship with him.
Knowing Jesus is a life-changing encounter, he continued. “It changes your way of being, it changes your way of thinking, the relationships you have with your brothers and sisters, your willingness to accept and forgive, the choices you make in life. Everything changes if you have truly come to know Jesus!”
Pope Francis referenced a quotation from the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed for being a Nazi dissident. “What is bothering me incessantly is the question of what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today,” Bonhoeffer wrote, as published in the book, “Letters and Papers from Prison.”
“Unfortunately, many people no longer pose themselves this question and remain ‘unbothered,’ slumbering, even far from God,” the pontiff noted.
“Instead, it is important to ask ourselves: do I let myself be bothered, do I ask who Jesus is for me, and what place he occupies in my life? Do I follow Jesus only in word, continuing to have a worldly mentality, or do I set out to follow him, allowing the encounter with him to transform my life?”
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As said before Pope Francis isn’t always wrong, the odds of chance are he’ll be right on occasion. Both in regards to the Hamas Israel conflict and Ukraine Russia both wars have potential for conflagration. Theoretically you can’t kill an ethnic based ideology like Hamas, most likely a just settlement is required for ending hostilities. Iran may be in a position, allied to China and Russia to widen the war with weapons capacity we’re unaware of.
Ukraine Russia is a greater danger, the West and Zelensky pushing for ballistic missile extension of the war into the heart of Russia. For this writer this is irrational because of the dire possible consequences in provoking a nuclear superpower. Francis, citing Bonhoeffer “What is bothering me incessantly is the question of what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today”, touches the root cause for our being on a disastrous precipice. Christ has lost meaning in our secularized world. And with that we’ve lost our rationality, our right reasoning so to speak. Ultimate victory is no longer the crucified Christ’s victory for our salvation. Victory is here, on this planet, with all means possible, even self annihilation. Practically speaking the crazies are in charge.
Is Hamas an “ethnic based ideology,” or is the abyss even deeper than the modern Western lens can see?
The jihadist network clearly knows that killing of innocents is immoral, but they are experiencing a horrified “desire to escape reality or transform it along the lines of a second reality more congenial to the pheumopathological terrorist imagination.” The italicized term applies to a spiritual sickness rather than any psychological disorder or more rational thought process at least calculated to achieve justice, if by whatever means. They know what they are doing; “They are not psychopaths who cannot distinguish good and evil or innocence and guilt” (Barry Cooper, “Jihadists’ and the War on Terrorism,” The Intercollegiate Review, Spring 2007).
An interesting point and quote from Barry Cooper. Apparently my use of the words ethnic based ideology wasn’t meant to confine the atrocities to a particular ethnicity. Realistically it’s a spiritual ideology that includes Philippine Moros, Iranians, and others besides Arabs.
Although, insofar as innocence and killing the innocent the Koran gives the license to kill the infidel at will, to rape and sodomize. The horror is that an apparently well meaning, gentle spirited Muslim can and may at any time explode into a frenzy of killing.
Their awareness according to Cooper of the immorality of killing the innocent is consequently not a religious divergence [for example one recorded instance of the raping of a man all night and at daybreak bowing toward Mecca in prayer is given account by Tim Jeal in Stanley, a biography of Henry Stanley when a correspondent based in Turkey from letters and other documentation]. Similarly the recent atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel were thought by the Jihadists to be perfectly consistent with their religious beliefs. It would be quite feasible to assume any sense of wrongness by the Jihadist is not due to religion, rather due to the natural law within.
As to the italicized term I believe you reference a [pheumopathological terrorist imagination]. A spiritual sickness, which indeed it is. Although it’s not inconsistent with the role of jihadist found in the Koran.
I should add for balance, Muslims aren’t alone in raping and sodomizing. Conquering armies of all nations have an unfortunate record of depraved behavior. I should also add one of my best friends in the military was a Muslim Pakistani, a man with far better values than many of my friends in Brooklyn.
Sadly, Hamas won’t release the hostages. They are savage Orcs completely bereft of humanity.
The remaining hostages are the only cards they’re holding. Why would they give those up?