As bombs fell and tanks penetrated deep into Gaza in late October, Israeli President Isaac Herzog held a fraught phone call with Pope Francis.
Yet there is concern among some pro-Israel organizations that, even while the Vatican holds less moral sway than it once did, Francis has greater potential than most political leaders to influence global sentiment.
On Nov. 22, in the hours before his general audience and “terrorism” comment, Francis held two emotional meetings: One with relatives of people killed in Gaza and the other with families of hostages taken by Hamas.
The pope’s Jewish critics complain that more broadly, he has focused on the plight in Gaza, mentioning it frequently, without dedicating an equal sense of outrage to the loss of life in Israel — something Vatican officials deny.
His critics also blame him for failing to specifically denounce comments they view as antisemitic from Egypt’s Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, with whom Francis had developed warm relations.
In 2015, he marked the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate — the Vatican II declaration that sought to remove Biblical-era blame for Jesus’s death on the Jewish people — with one of the strongest defenses of Israel by a sitting pope.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
As bombs fell and tanks penetrated deep into Gaza in late October, Israeli President Isaac Herzog held a fraught phone call with Pope Francis.
Yet there is concern among some pro-Israel organizations that, even while the Vatican holds less moral sway than it once did, Francis has greater potential than most political leaders to influence global sentiment.
On Nov. 22, in the hours before his general audience and “terrorism” comment, Francis held two emotional meetings: One with relatives of people killed in Gaza and the other with families of hostages taken by Hamas.
The pope’s Jewish critics complain that more broadly, he has focused on the plight in Gaza, mentioning it frequently, without dedicating an equal sense of outrage to the loss of life in Israel — something Vatican officials deny.
His critics also blame him for failing to specifically denounce comments they view as antisemitic from Egypt’s Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, with whom Francis had developed warm relations.
In 2015, he marked the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate — the Vatican II declaration that sought to remove Biblical-era blame for Jesus’s death on the Jewish people — with one of the strongest defenses of Israel by a sitting pope.
The original article contains 1,655 words, the summary contains 207 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!