Yesterday, after attending Mass and lunch near the Church of St. Ignatius, I made my way back to the Vatican by way of Rome’s old Jewish Quarter. Restaurants with names like “Taverna del Ghetto” and “Ba’Ghetto” were charming but also a reminder of the persecution and violence the Jewish people experienced for so many years in Christian lands.
My thoughts went immediately to Oct. 7 of last year. Today is the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s terrorist attack on southern Israel that left over 1,200 innocent civilians dead—infants and grandparents, Jews and Muslims, peace activists and migrant workers. For the families whose loved ones remain captive in the tunnels of Gaza, Oct. 7 has not ended. They are the lucky ones; mothers and fathers and siblings who held out hope that their captured loved ones would be rescued have learned instead that they were executed in cold blood after surviving months of torture. In the 365 days since Oct. 7, a horrific war between Israel and Hamas has killed tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians and threatens to embroil the region in all-out war.
I was here in Rome on that day one year ago to cover the first session of the Synod on Synodality, and I recall the horror I experienced as the reports of executions, torture and rape, acts gleefully captured by their perpetrators, trickled out. I also remember the feeling of dissonance as life went on here as usual. The next day, Pope Francis made a passionate call for peace in his Angelus remarks, as he has many times since, but otherwise, the members of the synod carried out their meetings and America’s team on the ground continued to seek out new ways to make sense of synodality. My attention was on the Vatican, but my heart was in the Holy Land.
On this grim anniversary, when war has spread from Israel and Gaza to Lebanon, I am asking myself: What, if anything, does this Synod on Synodality have to say about Oct. 7 and its aftermath?
Two words that I have heard often over the past week at the synod come to mind: reconciliation and credibility.
On the eve of the synod, Pope Francis led a penitential service in which he requested forgiveness for seven sins committed by the church, including a lack of courage and commitment to peace. “How could we be a synodal church without reconciliation?,” the pope asked.
“In the face of evil and innocent suffering, we ask: ‘Where are you Lord?’ But we should ask, ‘Where are we?’ We should ask ourselves about our own responsibility when we are not able to stop evil with good.” A people who are not reconciled with God or their brothers and sisters are not “credible witnesses” of faith, he said.
On Saturday, I had the opportunity to listen to, and be challenged by, one extremely credible witness to peace. At a press briefing, Bishop Mounir Khairallah, a synod delegate and the Maronite Catholic Eparch of Batroun, Lebanon, shared the story of witnessing the murder of his parents in their home when he was 5 years old. He and his three siblings were taken by their aunt, a nun, to her convent, where she told them not to pray for their parents, who were now martyrs in heaven, but for the man who killed them.
Decades later, he shared his story with a group of young people, and one of them challenged him: You say you forgive your parents’ killer, Father, but if he came to you in confession today, would you absolve him? Bishop Khairallah said he struggled with the question—offering “forgiveness from a distance” is one thing; doing so up close is another. “But finally yes, I would absolve this person,” he said. “I understand why forgiveness is so difficult, but it is possible.”
Pope Francis “has set as a goal of this synod forgiveness and reconciliation,” Bishop Khairallah said, and as a synod delegate from war-torn Lebanon, he has come to talk about forgiveness. “The greatest decision to be made is [whether] the church, through this synod, may become a messenger of living together,” he said, “which means listening to each other, respecting each other, dialoguing with each other, and then freeing ourselves from the fear of others.”
To be honest, I do not want to talk about forgiveness today. I want to mourn the people who were murdered on Oct. 7. I want Hamas and Hezbollah dismantled so that the people of Israel, Gaza and Lebanon can live in peace. I want to shame those who, on Oct. 8, before Israel had even counted its dead and captured or mounted a response, celebrated Hamas’s modern-day pogrom as an act of “resistance.” I want to comfort my Jewish friends in the United States who woke up one day and realized they were not welcome or safe on their campuses or in their communities, and apologize for not speaking out more loudly against antisemitism in the wake of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
There is a time to critique Israel’s actions since Oct. 7 and to call for peace, I tell myself. But not today.
And yet. Jesus did not say forgive your enemy tomorrow; lay down your arms when the threat has been neutralized. No, now is the acceptable time. Now is the necessary time. It is a hard thing for me to hear. And I understand if my Jewish brothers and sisters find it even harder. What credibility does a church that persecuted Jews for nearly 2,000 years have when it comes to saying how they can and cannot defend their very existence?
But I could not listen to Bishop Khairallah without questioning my own certainties and recognizing my need to change, to turn to Christ. As my colleague Gerard O’Connell has written, the synod is a call to conversion. Conversion to what? To a people reconciled to God and one another because we are ever eager to offer the mercy we have received. The synod process is not primarily about reforming structure or changing teaching but forming people, at every level of the church, who know Christ’s love and peace. Only such a people, such a church has the credibility to be a sacrament of unity and to bring reconciliation to a divided, violent world.
More news from in and around the synod hall:
- Members of the Synod of Bishops have voted to give up one of their few free afternoons to “dialogue” with the leaders of the study groups Pope Francis set up to reflect on important questions raised by the synod in 2023. The study groups are investigating questions such as how to improve seminary education, ministry to LGBTQ Catholics and possible ministry roles for women in the Catholic Church.
- On Sunday, the vigil of the Oct. 7 anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, Pope Francis led a recitation of the rosary for peace with members of the Synod of Bishops, pilgrims, ambassadors accredited to the Vatican and Catholics from the Diocese of Rome at Rome's Basilica of St. Mary Major.
- On Oct. 7, a day the pope asked Catholics worldwide to dedicate to prayer, fasting and being at the service of humanity, Francis released a letter in which he expressed his solidarity with all those suffering because of conflicts throughout the Middle East, urged Christians to be peacemakers and warned warmongers they will face God's judgment.
