The ‘Priests Against Genocide’ take to the streets. Their aim: to disarm Israel

Rome. Today marks the ‘Priests Against Genocide’ march, a procession which will wind its way through the streets of Rome in the mid-afternoon, setting off from the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia, stopping in front of the Lebanese and Palestinian embassies, and ending in front of Leonardo’s headquarters in Piazza Monte Grappa. The participants will march behind a huge shroud bearing the names of the 309 boys and girls “killed by the Israeli army in Gaza”. The initiative follows on from one held a year ago, when 200 priests gathered at the Church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale to emphasise their protest against “the genocide of the Palestinian people”. A network with a “strongly synodal” spirit, say the organisers (synodality is thrown in everywhere, like salt in soup). This was not a prayer vigil, but a call to politicians to put an end to procrastination and silence and to make their voices heard – naturally, against Israel. One need only read the manifesto of these ‘outraged’ priests (though there are also bishops and cardinals) who cannot ‘remain silent in the face of the humanitarian tragedy affecting the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip and the other occupied Palestinian territories’. This network has not been established to foment hatred or division, but to provide a unified voice for the many individual initiatives that already express condemnation and a call for justice, in fidelity to the Gospel and the Italian Constitution’. They state straight away that they are not anti-Semitic: ‘We harbour a deep appreciation for the Jewish tradition, from which we have received the teachings of Jesus and from which we still draw grace and wisdom. For this reason, we reject any possible accusation of anti-Semitism, both in definition and in substance.” They cannot be accused of anti-Semitism because, they write, “criticism of Israel similar to that directed at any other country cannot be considered anti-Semitic”, as recognised by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Furthermore, they clarify, “we harbour no prejudice towards the Jewish people; on the contrary, we recognise our common roots in them. Rather, we denounce the distorted use of political and military power and the exploitation of God’s name, just as the prophets of the Jewish tradition did against the unjust kings of their time”.

The problem is not the Netanyahu government and its allies; it is Israel itself: as well as “denouncing the genocide taking place in Gaza, the unjustified violence against the Palestinian civilian population and the state of apartheid that has been in place for over 70 years across all the occupied Palestinian territories”, they call for “the suspension of arms sales to those committing crimes against civilians” and “the disarmament of the State of Israel to prevent further deaths of innocent people”. They also call for “the prosecution for war crimes of all those responsible for the mass extermination currently taking place in Gaza”. On the Hamas pogrom, nothing: not even a footnote or a note in the margin. On the contrary, they call for “the acknowledgement of personal, political and military responsibilities, through independent and fair investigations into 7 October 2023, and into what happened before and after that date”.

Standing up for life has always been one of the Church’s defining characteristics. So too has demonstrating. The hope is that similar proclamations and programmes, marches and black banners, will also be raised for Christians in Nicaragua, who are prevented from freely professing their faith and who – in many cases – end up in the far from comfortable prisons of the Sandinista regime. The same should hold true for Nigerians whose throats are slit while on their way to Mass, for Christians in Mozambique, and for those in Pakistan who risk being lynched on a daily basis because they are often accused of blasphemy. For the Ukrainian children who go to school under the watchful eye of the Kremlin’s drones. There would be so many shrouds to carry in a procession. To choose just one is to give in to ideology. Even if it is done in the name of ‘the Gospel and the Constitution’.