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In an address to one million young Catholics, gathered in Rome for the Mass of Young People for the Jubilee Year, Pope Leo spoke of the need to end the suffering of the “young people of Gaza,” but said nothing about the Israeli hostages being tortured and starved to death in tunnels under the Strip. More on what he said, and what he failed to say, can be found here: “Pope criticised for failure to mention hostages in statement on Gaza,” Jewish News, August 3, 2025:
The Pope has been criticised for statements in which he described being “with the young people of Gaza” without any mention of the Israeli hostages who are still in the clutches of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Leo XIV, who took office in May, was presiding over a Mass for the Jubilee of Young People at Rome’s Tor Vergata, with a million people said to be in attendance. In his closing remarks, he talked about how “we are closer than ever to young people who suffer the most serious evils which are caused by other human beings. We are with the young people of Gaza. We are with the young people of Ukraine, with those of every land bloodied by war.
“My young brothers and sisters, you are the sign that a different world is possible, a world of fraternity and friendship, where conflicts are not resolved with weapons but with dialogue.”
Does Pope Leo know anything about the texts and teachings of Islam? He speaks about a “world of fraternity and friendship,” apparently unaware that in the Qur’an, Muslims are instructed “not to take Jews and Christians as friends, for they are friends only with each other.” He does not appear to know that for believing and knowledgable Muslims, the “fraternity” he calls for is impossible, for Muslims know from the Qur’an that they are the “best of peoples,” while non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings.” They know further, from the very words of Muhammad, that “Islam must dominate and is not to be dominated.” But Pope Leo does not know any of this. He believes that whatever strife there is in the world is the product of misunderstanding, and that greater comprehension between people will inexorably lead to peace. He wants us to ignore 1,400 years of Muslim aggression against many non-Muslim peoples and their lands, fueled by the the contents of the Qur’an and hadith.
The Pope’s words were subsequently also posted on social media, where they were met with disappointment and condemnation for the lack of any mention of the hostages taken on 7 October, which began the current war in Gaza.
Why did the Pope pass over in silence the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza?
In the last few days, both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have released videos of emaciated hostages – Evyatar David and Rom Braslavsky. In the section of the PIJ video released to the public, Braslavsky speaks about how he is without food or water, and says: “I am on the verge of death”. In the Hamas video of David, he is forced to dig what he says is his own grave.
Given those latest horrifying images of what the hostages endure, one might have thought there would have been a sympathetic mention of their plight by Pope Leo, but he said nothing about them. This failure has caused consternation and alarm among Jewish groups. In the first month of his papacy, on May 28, he did call for peace in Gaza and for the release of the hostages. But since then, he has stopped mentioning the need for the Israeli hostages to be released. Has he been seeing the same images we are all shown on television, of gaunt and dead children in Gaza, photographs which include children emaciated not as the result of hunger, but from the effects of congenital illnesses? He has yet to denounce Hamas, or even to mention the terror group by name, much less to note that Hamas tries always to maximize civilian casualties in Gaza, while the IDF strives instead to minimize civilian casualties, by conducting a tremendous campaign to warn civilians away from places about to be targeted, by dropping millions of leaflets, sending millions of text messages, and making millions of robocalls. As West Point Professor John Spencer, an expert in urban warfare who has been exhaustively studying the war in Gaza, concludes, “Israel has done more and implemented more measures to prevent civilian harm than any military in the history of urban warfare.”
The Pope could repair his relations with world Jewry by calling forcefully for the release of Israeli hostages, stressing the torments they have undergone in captivity, and the ever-increasing length of time they have been held, now surpassing 670 days. He ought to take note, as he has not yet, of Hamas’ charter, that calls for the total destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. He could deplore publicly the Palestinian Authority’s “Pay-For-Slay Program,” which rewards past, and incentivizes future, acts of terrorism. He could do these things, and more, to relieve the anxiety of Jews at the papacy’s seeming indifference to Jewish suffering. But will he?