Pope Slams Israel’s ‘Barbarity’ in Fiery Gaza Speech

In a thunderous rebuke echoing from the throne of St. Peter, Pope Leo XIV has issued his most searing condemnation yet of the escalating violence in Gaza, after a direct Israeli strike claimed lives at the Holy Family Catholic parish—the only Catholic church in the besieged enclave. From the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo after Sunday’s Angelus, the Holy Father mourned the killing of three innocent Christians and decried what he called “the barbarity of war” afflicting not only the faithful, but entire civilian populations in Gaza. With righteous indignation, he called out the repeated targeting of sanctuaries—places of prayer turned battlegrounds—and demanded a halt to the indiscriminate destruction leveled even against the most sacred spaces. His powerful appeal, backed by Cardinal Pasolin’s stark reference to Gaza as a “war without limits,” underscores a Vatican deeply troubled by a conflict spiraling beyond moral comprehension. Despite Israel’s official apology and promises of investigation, the Pope’s unflinching denunciation signals a Vatican no longer willing to cloak its dismay. In this dark hour, as Christians suffer and churches burn, the Pope's rallying cry rises: not to choose sides, but to choose humanity.