ROME – An official of the oldest Jewish advocacy organization in the United States has called upon the ongoing Synod on Synodality in the Vatican to issue an explicit condemnation of terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel, suggesting it’s a needed gesture of “moral clarity.”
“To this point, the synod gathered in the Vatican has not succeeded in explicitly condemning the inhuman atrocities of Hamas, and this is a missed opportunity for moral clarity,” said Rabbi Noam Marans on 13 October, in an interview with the Italian newspaper <em>Il Messaggero</em>.
Rabbi Marans is the Director of Interreligious and Intergroup Relations for the American Jewish Committee, and is in Rome taking part in a conference at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University on recently released documents from the papacy of Pius XII during the Holocaust and the Second World War.
The Synod on Synodality brings together 464 Catholic leaders from around the world, including a wide swath of the Church’s senior hierarchy.
“I believe it would give proof of real moral leadership if all of today’s Catholic leaders would condemn specifically the barbarous terrorist attacks against Israel, and not minimize them through the generalized opposition to war and aspirations for peace that we all share,” Marans said.
The comments come after two critical statements from the Israeli embassy to the Vatican objecting to what it described as “linguistic ambiguities” and false “parallelisms” in commentary on the conflict, but also after Israeli Ambassador Raphael Schutz expressed satisfaction with remarks from Pope Francis in a general audience on 11 October, in which he called for the release of hostages and also affirmed Israel’s right to self-defence.
Marans likewise welcomed those comments from the pontiff.
“Papal declarations on conflicts sometimes reflect a reluctance from the Church to take sides, leading to generalized appeals for peace,” he said. “But this time the words of the Pope at the General Audience included a useful specificity, offering comfort to grieving people in Israel, by asking for the release of hostages in the hands of the terrorists and affirming Israel’s right to self-defence.”
Despite occasional frustrations for Christian leaders and communities in Israel, Marans also insisted that Christianity in the country is better off than virtually anywhere else in the region.
“Whatever the challenges may be for the Church in the Holy Land, it’s clear that Israel, where freedom of religion is a founding national principle, remains the best place for Christianity to flower in the Middle East,” he said.
To date, the Synod has not issued any statement addressing the conflict unfolding between Israel and Hamas, though it did devote its morning prayers on 12 October to the cause of peace.
