Significantly absent in the long obituaries for Pope Francis in both the New York Times and the Washington Post were mentions of his deep concern for the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza. In Francis’s last public message on Easter Sunday, just hours before he died, he had called for a ceasefire in Gaza, and condemned the “deplorable humanitarian situation” there.
The obits also failed to note that Pope Francis had personally telephoned the Holy Family Church in Gaza just about every evening since Israel invaded the territory in October 2023 — including the Saturday night before Easter. The church’s pastor, Rev. Gabriel Romanelli, remembered: “He said he was praying for us, he blessed us, and he thanked us for our prayers.” Other church members said that the Pope “would make sure to speak not only to the priest but to everyone else in the room.”
Pope Francis’s concern for Gaza and Palestine did not start in October 2023. Rev. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian theologian and Lutheran pastor, told Democracy Now:
I think no Palestinian will ever forget when Pope Francis, in 2014, stopped his car, went down, stepped down and prayed at the separation wall separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem — a moment that touched all of us and continued to speak to us for years.
Of course, there was plenty in the life of this remarkable 88-year-old man to include in those obituaries. But the pontiff’s ongoing concern for Gaza surely should have been part of the record in America’s leading newspapers. Those nightly telephone calls were exactly the kind of detail that brings a story to life. Instead, part of Pope Francis’s message is being erased.
So what actually happened at the New York Times? Journalists with first-hand experience there have told me that 95 percent of the self-censorship about Israel/Palestine is unspoken. “No one has to actually tell you to skirt the subject,” one source explained. “You just understand that you have to be very careful.”
Thank you James North. Palestine Chronicle’s Israels deep, dark, hate from Dror Eydar:
Blaming Pope Francis for rising antisemitism, Dror Eydar urged Israel to reject any official participation in his funeral.
“He spoke about the children of Gaza, not our children, and portrayed us as the villains of the world,” Eydar said, further accusing the Pope of fueling global antisemitism…”
“The late pope, according to Eydar, “continued to filter venom against us and accused us of genocide”.
“Pope Francis’ name was rivaled in the degree of his antisemitism only by Pius XII,” he claimed, adding: “Pius XII is the Pope who was silent during the Holocaust.”
Suggesting that Israel refrain from sending a high-level delegation, Eydar said the country should be represented only by a low-ranking official, to signal that “Jewish blood is not cheap.”
In January 2025, he called the humanitarian crisis in Gaza “very serious and shameful” and firmly stated: “We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians … that children are freezing to death because hospitals have been destroyed.”
Weeks earlier, he had suggested the international community must ask whether Israel’s military campaign amounted to genocide—a remark that drew sharp criticism from Israeli officials, who accused him of antisemitism.
According to Eydar, “The meaning of the establishment of the State of Israel is that Jesus comes down from the cross, wraps himself in a tallit, and returns to being a Galilean Jew.”
“This time, he holds a weapon,” he claimed.
NYT, Wapo and Israel are nowhere :
“…To be against what is new is not to be modern. Not to be modern is to write yourself out of the scene. Not to be in the scene is to be nowhere…” Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word
The NYT belatedly covers Pope Francis’s support for the people of Palestine:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/world/middleeast/pope-francis-gaza.html
I put up my observations about the lack of attention or even mention of some of the Pope’s last thoughts, concerns, statements about death and destruction, starvation in Gaza on main stream outlets at Cspan, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, BBC, etc etc on Sunday.
“Kathleen Galt
Many of the Pope’s last words focused on the death and destruction Israel has been and continues inflicting upon the Palestinians. Not one host on any main stream outlets bringing up that some of the Pope’s last words focused on the suffering of the Palestinians. The brutal, heinous actions of Israel committed against /on the Palestinian’s.
Nothing about the Pope’s focus on suffering in Gaza at the hands, guns, weapons brutality of the Israeli’s.
Not on Sky News, ABC, BBC, CBS, MSNBC, Cspan, CNN, Fox, NPR…nothing mentioned about the Pope’s focus at the end and his last words spoken about the suffering taking place in Gaza. “Peace is possible” he added.”
We know the Rachel Maddows’s (never talks about this critical issue) of the main stream media etc will not be mentioning the last issues, concerns of Pope Francis before he died. Nope Maddow will not be even whispering about this fact. She loves those big pay checks.
Why would Francis- by all measures considered a most compassionate pope favour one people’s under brutal murderous regimes and dying in war more special then others? Why would the NYT or WP (both of which have lost much credibility in the past decade primarily from moderate liberal and conservative readers) place any more importance On covering Francis concern for a Palestinians over say, Sudanese being killed in the100s of 1000s. Myanmar. Ethiopians, Congolese, a million Yeminis and probably as many Somalis. No ties of genocide there? All civilian death in war are tragic but is North claiming that Francis had less ‘special concern’ for those who were being killed in exponentially higher numbers where the concept of ‘genocide’ is much closer to actual definition, Why would the Pope (any Pope really) have such a particularly focused affinity fora people who’s leadership considers Catholics to be ‘ infidels and where Hamas rules in Gaza there can easily be found so many speeches and comments on their disdain for and intention to first wipe outtheJewsand then turn to the Christian infidels? This is faintly common knowledge I presume among the well read commenters hereonMW.? Like I
Kurds , Yazidi, Syrian, Tibetian American,etc. Aren’t they all worthy he same special concern by the NYT? ( and this is personally addressed to North since this is his obsessive complaint with NY