ROME – Leaders often speak at least as loudly by what they don’t say as by what they do, and such would appear to be the case in recent days regarding Pope Francis’s approach to Israel and the broader Jewish world.
A series of perceived papal slights began in late October, when a group of family members of victims of the Oct. 7 surprise attack by Hamas against Israel, as well as family members of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas, visited Italy.
Accompanied by Israel’s Ambassador to Italy, the President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities and the President of the Jewish Community of Rome, the group met with a series of leading national figures, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
