Open Letter to Pope Francis

Jerusalem, November 29^th 2024

Dear Mr. Bergoglio,

No, not the People of Israel, but you must be held accountable!

For your abhorrent accusation of genocide against Israel, recently made public*, you will have to atone towards the millions of Jewish women, men, and children who were humiliated, dehumanized, tortured, and destroyed by your predecessors over two millennia in the name of the Church.

A long line of popes before you, Mr. Bergoglio, accused the People of Israel of the absurd charge of deicide, and now you dare – inspired by the same spirit of hubris – to accuse the Jewish state, fighting for its life, of genocide. Shame on you!

After the cowardly silence of Pius XII in the face of the Jewish extermination during the Shoah, you not only fail to show solidarity with the Jewish people or turn away today’s Nazis in Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine. You also accuse the Israeli soldiers, who have been fighting for the survival of the Jewish state for over a year, of genocide. Our sons and daughters are fighting against the most abhorrent genocidal jihadists, and at this point they are doing so literally with their last strength, risking their mental and physical health for the People of Israel – and you accuse us of genocide! As the head of the Catholic Church, you thus bring the latest Christian blood libel against the Jews into the world. Shame on you!

With your shameful behavior since October 7, 2023, Mr. Bergoglio, you are pushing us Jews – willingly or unconsciously, only your Creator knows – into the classic position of the forever punished and humiliated Jew. In doing so, you mock the great process of Teshuvah (repentance) that the Catholic Church set in motion with the Second Vatican Council sixty years ago, thanks to the contribution of great Jews like Jules Isaac and great Christians like Papa buono John XXIII and Pope Paul VI. Shame on you!

With your shameful behavior, Mr. Bergoglio, you have managed to so thoroughly offend committed activists of Christian-Jewish rapprochement – myself included – that we are on the verge of completely losing trust in the dialogue between our religions. Because under your leadership, the Church has failed and abandoned us once again. This time, however, it may have been one time too many.

With highest respect,

Gabriel Strenger
Clinical Psychologist, Judaist, and long-time activist of Jewish-Christian Dialogue

*  https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/pope-francis-calls-for-probe-to-determine-if-israels-actions-in-gaza-constitute-genocide/

(in the photo: Gabriel Strenger in conversation with Cardinal Kurt Koch and Rabbi David Rosen in 2015 in Basel, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the declaration “Nostra Aetate” at the 2nd Vatican Council)