Prayers4Peace: A Letter by Father Elias
By: Rev. Dr. Elias D. Mallon
This piece was written in July of 2025.
Dear Friends,
On July 16, 2025, the whole world watched in horror as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of the Netanyahu Israeli government bombed the Catholic Church of the Holy Family in Gaza City. Three people were killed, and Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, the pastor of Holy Family, was wounded. International indignation and outrage have been immediate and world-wide.
Palestinian Catholics hold a dual identity as both members of a minuscule religious minority in Palestine and as members of the largest Christian denomination, and perhaps faith group, in the world.
I am as outraged as anyone. Having worked with issues of Israel-Palestine since the early 1970s, I am more familiar with the issues than I would wish. However, as the attention of the world focuses in on the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Family, I would gently remind my fellow believers about our Catholicity. On the day of the atrocity alone, 27 Palestinians were killed in Gaza in attacks unrelated to that on the church. Over 48,000 Palestinian civilians, including more than 15,000 known children, have been killed. Most of them were Muslims, who do not have a widespread and established influential network/platform of advocacy in the West.
Of course, our own individual pain always feels the most immediate and, hence, the “greatest.” If, however, Jesus has taught us anything, it is to be aware of the suffering of others who have no voice of their own. Our outrage, as justified as it is, cannot and must not be reduced to a denominational grievance, regardless how large the denomination. If our outrage, our advocacy, our compassion, and demands for justice are not for all, we are not nearly as “Catholic” as we think.
While the present calls for dialogue and reconciliation are appropriate, it is a serious mistake to see the actions of the Israeli Netanyahu government as a subset of the Christian-Jewish Interfaith Dialogue. It is not. There are no “two sides” to what is now widely regarded by credible agencies as genocide, there are no “two sides” to starving a civilian population, to killing well over 48,000 civilians, including 15,000 children, there are no “two sides” to bombing hospitals, schools, religious places of refuge and worship.
The issues at stake are not and should not be allowed to become issues of Christian-Jewish relations any more than the conflict between Ukraine and Russia should be reduced to Intra-Orthodox relations. In this instance, we are dealing with international law.
Anti-Semitism is clearly on the rise in its classical and most hateful forms. It must be combated by all people of good will. However, to conflate Anti-Semitism, real and lethal as it is, with criticism of Israel as a nation state is a cynical ploy which must be combated with the same consistency as Anti-Semitism is combated.
One may negotiate to end genocide, but one does not “dialogue” with agents of genocide in search of some common ground! All calls for cessation of hostilities, including calls from religious groups, must recognize that this is not purely a religious phenomenon, contrary to the framing presented by many. All calls for a just and sustainable peace between Israel and Palestine, therefore, should also call for an embargo on arms sales to Israel. Pious calls for dialogue in Gaza and the West Bank are like praying for rain when the house is burning down.
About the author: Rev. Elias D. Mallon, a native New Yorker, is an ordained member of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement (Graymoor). He obtained a licentiate degree (STL) in Old Testament studies and a PhD in Middle Eastern languages from the Catholic University of America. He researched and wrote his dissertation at Eberhard Karls Universität in Tübingen, Germany. He taught at the Washington Theological Union and American University in the Washington, DC. He taught ancient Near Eastern languages the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. He also worked for the then Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (now Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity) as its faculty representative at the Institut Œcuménique of the World Council of Churches in Bossey, Switzerland. From 1989-2001 he was Director of the Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute in New York City.
He has been involved in the Roman Catholic/Christian-Muslim dialogue on the local, national and international level since 1985 and has published several articles and two books on Islam.
Over twenty years he has represented two NGOs at the United Nations and has been on the UN Israel Palestine Working Group for two decades. He is a regular contributor to different publications and he is also active in various interreligious dialogue efforts and research and writes for a number of periodicals.