1
Israel should not send a high-ranking representative to the funeral of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known as Pope Francis. This pope has played a considerable role in fueling the wave of antisemitism worldwide since October 7. The day following the massacre, he gave a sermon at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican and failed to mention, even once, the atrocities committed by barbarians against the people of God. Throughout the war, he consistently criticized Israel with venomous language and even questioned whether Israel was committing "genocide" in Gaza. He repeatedly emphasized the children in Gaza, often neglecting the children in Israel. Historically, his level of antisemitism rivals only that of Pope Pius XII, who remained silent during the horrors of the Holocaust. We have national dignity, especially for our martyrs—the victims of October 7—whom the pope did not mourn, but rather blamed their people for their own deaths.
Bergoglio has not conducted himself as the head of the Church or a major religious figure, but rather as a politician and social activist with socialist, even Marxist, leanings. He has steered the Church into territories we believed it would never return to. In 1958, Pope John XXIII was elected and acknowledged the Church's historical responsibility for what had happened in Europe. It is symbolic that the current pope died on the eve of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. The greatest trauma of the Western world remains the crucifixion of a Jew from our people.
2
In a certain sense, the persecutions of Jews throughout history, up to the Holocaust, were a kind of psychological compulsion to repeat the trauma of the crucifixion. That was the role the Church assigned to us: to be eternal victims, homeless, nailed to the cross. The founding of the State of Israel means, in psycho-theological terms, that Jesus has come down from the cross, wrapped himself in a tallit, and returned as a Galilean Jew in the Land of Israel—this time armed and refusing to be crucified again.
Bergoglio never accepted this historical shift. That is why he opposed Israel's war against the new Nazis in Gaza. According to him, Jews are not meant to defeat their enemies but to accept their fate submissively. Christian tradition holds that the crucifixion took place at Golgotha, a site where many were executed, hence the presence of skulls. By comparison, the Holocaust was a Golgotha of unfathomable scale. Pope Pius XII remained silent in the face of the murder of Jews; Pope Francis, by contrast, spoke out—against the true victims. He blamed the people of God, even though our sons were beheaded, our daughters raped and shot in the head, and our fathers and children bound and burned alive.
3
The Church now stands at a critical crossroads, and its fate depends on the choice of the next pope. Francis appointed many cardinals from the Third World who espouse progressive, anti-Western, and particularly anti-American and anti-Israeli views. His supporters seek to further push the Catholic Church in that direction. Opposing them is the conservative camp, including disciples of the late Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), a serious intellectual and theologian. Ratzinger identified the threat facing Western civilization—and by extension, Judeo-Christian civilization—as the spread of violent radical Islam and the conquest of Europe. For this insight, he paid with his position and was forced to resign.
4
Half of the Christians in the Middle East have fled to the West. The other half remain in danger, persecuted, and often forcibly converted to Islam. Today, the fate of Christians in the Middle East resembles that of Jews in medieval Europe. The historical irony is that the only thriving and protected Christian community is in the Holy Land—in the Jewish state. Bergoglio never criticized radical Islam or spoke out against the plight of Christians. Only the Jews were targeted by his blood libels. In the Middle Ages, we were accused of using the blood of children to bake Passover matzah. This past year, he accused Israel of allegedly committing atrocities against the children of Gaza. Not Hamas—the Jews were to blame.
5
Nearly two thousand years have passed since a Jew from our people was crucified in Jerusalem. Throughout history, the Jewish people have struggled in their relationship with the Christian Church. From a Catholic perspective, the State of Israel is a theological scandal. The God of Israel brought His people home to Zion, despite the Church's opposition. Israel must stand proudly and not bow its head in the name of dry diplomatic protocol. The blood of our brothers and sisters cries out to us from the ground.
