Francis says about Gaza what he has never said about Israel, Ukraine, Nigeria or China

As a Catholic, it pains me to have to write this article, but it would hurt me even more to remain silent in the face of a regrettable statement by Francis.

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Today, the Vatican news service reported on the publication of a new book by Pope Francis in which the leader of the Catholic Church states the following: "According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide. It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies."

I don't know which "experts" Francis is referring to, but the reality is that accusations of "genocide" against Israel have been launched by leftist governments (such as Pedro Sánchez's in Spain), by far-left parties (such as the communists of Podemos and Sumar), Hamas terrorists and their allies (such as Turkey and South Africa). It is regrettable that the Pope makes a statement like that, aligning himself with these enemies of Israel.

As I explained here a few months ago, Israel is a democratic country that tries to minimize civilian casualties, while Hamas is a terrorist organization that uses civilians as human shields, which is a war crime. Francis has never said anything about this war crime by Hamas. Francis has not accused Hamas of "genocide" for calling for the killing of all Jews (he does so in its founding charter, dated 1988) or for the anti-Semitic massacre it perpetrated on October 7, 2023, a massacre that hundreds of jurists from several countries have described as "genocide". Experts whose opinion the Pope has decided to ignore, apparently.

So far, Francis has not called for an investigation into Russia's systematic massacre of Ukrainian civilians as "genocide", a massacre that has had its most recent episode today with a new Russian terrorist attack on Odessa, killing ten people, including two children. Unlike Israel (a democratic country defending itself after suffering a brutal terrorist attack), Russia is a dictatorship committing a war of aggression against Ukraine, an unprovoked and absolutely unjustified invasion. Perhaps Francis' different yardstick with Gaza and Ukraine is due to his good relationship with Kirill, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, a friend of Putin who has justified his criminal aggression against Ukraine.

On the other hand, Francis has not called for the massacres that Christians are suffering in Nigeria by Islamist terrorists to be investigated as "genocide". Recall that in April of last year, VaticanNews noted that in the last 14 years 52,250 Christians have been killed by Islamists in Nigeria. However, Francis has not used the word "genocide" to refer to these massacres even once. Matthew Hassan Kukah, bishop of Sokoto, in Nigeria, has indeed denounced this genocide, but until now the Pope has not echoed his denunciation.

Finally, I do not believe that Francis' words about Gaza are motivated by a special sympathy for Muslims. In fact, Francis has not described as "genocide" the genocide being perpetrated by communist China against the Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, whose members have been suffering systematic deportation to concentration camps, torture, rape, sterilization, forced labor and other forms of mistreatment.

The Catholic Church upholds the dogma of papal infallibility, proclaimed in 1870 by the First Vatican Council, but it must be remembered that this dogma refers to the Pope’s “ex cathedra” statements on matters of faith and morality. When he speaks on political issues and expresses personal opinions, as he has done in this book, the Pope does not speak for all Catholics. Of course, as a Catholic, I do not feel at all represented by Francis when I see him call for Israel to be investigated for "genocide", while he does not say the same about the Hamas pogrom against Israel, the massacres of Ukrainians by Russia, the killing of Christians by Islamists in Nigeria or the brutal campaign of communist China against the Uighur ethnic group.

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Photo: Efe.