The Roman Catholic Pope Francis made his last public appearance on Easter Sunday, 20 April, from the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican less than 24 hours before his death, which was announced on Monday morning.
After months of recovering from pneumonia, having spent weeks in hospital late last year, the visibly ailing 88-year-old pontiff passed on his text for this year’s Easter celebrations to Archbishop Diego Ravelli, the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations at the Vatican.
After expressing his shock at the many conflicts in the world where the “thirst for death and killing” rages on against families, women and children, and migrants, Pope Francis paused on the war on Gaza.
“I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation. I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace,” the Pope said.
While his cautious language was consistent with his discourse over the past 18 months of Israel’s war on Gaza, where he expressed solidarity and empathy with the Palestinians while avoiding any mention of the Israeli Occupation Forces, Pope Francis’ speech still struck a chord.
For Palestinians and the global anti-war movement, the Pope’s last words bookended his legacy, which was significantly influenced by his stand on the war on Gaza, much to Israel’s chagrin.
Despite his illness, Pope Francis called Gaza’s Holy Family Catholic Parish almost every night after 9 October 2023 in the months before his death.
He developed firm relationships and chatted with the priests there, even when his health declined, and he had to be admitted to hospital. Videos released by the Vatican before the current famine in Gaza became entrenched, show him asking the Palestinian priests what they had had for lunch and greeting them in Arabic.
As Israel continued its bombing campaigns on Gaza, the Pope became increasingly critical of its war. Observers say he broke with the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church being neutral on international issues.
In November 2024, the Pope recalled the situations in Ukraine and Palestine as being “two failures of humanity,” “where suffering is great, and the arrogance of the occupier undermines dialogue.”
Early on in Israel’s war on Gaza, the Pope described the Israeli attacks against civilians in Gaza as “terrorism,” including the killing of Palestinian Christians by Israeli snipers in the Holy Family Catholic Parish.
He continued to criticise Israel for refusing entry to a priest to Gaza. “Yesterday,” he said in December 2024, Palestinian “children were bombed. This is cruelty. This is not war.”
In his book “Hope never Disappoints,” published in November 2024, the Pope expanded on his public statements on Gaza, going as far as to quote experts describing Israel’s war as genocide and demanding an investigation.
Later that year in December, he prayed over a Nativity Scene in the Vatican which featured the baby Jesus wrapped in a Palestinian kuffiya, the black-and-white checkered scarf that has come to symbolise Palestinian identity and culture.
Israel has damaged or destroyed all of Gaza’s three churches. More than 51,000 Palestinians have been killed in the besieged enclave since October 2023, and more than 111,000 others have been wounded.
The war has prompted the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to open an investigation into the crime of genocide by Israel, and it has destroyed more than 90 per cent of Gaza’s infrastructure, including hospitals.
Israel, which controls and imposes a complete blockade of the Strip, has refused the entry of all aid since 2 March this year, causing starvation and famine to its two-million population of largely homeless people.
Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Italian immigrants who had fled Mussolini’s fascist rule in Italy. He was elected Pope on 13 March 2013.
He was the first Jesuit Pope, the first from the Americas, and, despite his European origins, the first from the Southern Hemisphere.
During his 12 years as pontiff, the Pope was credited with reshaping the Roman Catholic Church and improving much of the world’s perception of the Holy See through his pastoral style of leadership and his breaking from tradition.
He preached tolerance for the LGBQT community and called for an end to anti-gay laws worldwide. A true Jesuit, he spoke out against capitalism, elevated women to leadership roles in the Vatican, gave interviews to left-wing media, and washed the feet of Muslim, Orthodox, and Hindu migrants, women prison inmates, the elderly and disabled.
A sharp critic of US President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policy, the Pope did not mince his words when he called Trump’s plans to deport millions of migrants from the US as “a disgrace.” In 2016, during Trump’s first White House campaign, the Pope said Trump was “not Christian” in his views on immigration.
A statement by the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar in Cairo, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, praised Pope Francis for promoting dialogue and understanding among religions. Al-Tayeb described the Pope as a true friend to Muslims, whose final statements in the defence of the Palestinians would be remembered with deep respect.
Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement in Gaza, mourned the Pope’s death in a statement. The group extended its deepest condolences to the Roman Catholic Church worldwide and to all Christians.
Highlighting the Pope’s long career “in the service of human and religious values,” Hamas expressed its gratitude for the Pope, who was “one of the most important religious voices to condemn the war crimes and genocide” in Gaza.
In 2014, during a visit to the West Bank, Pope Francis stopped his motorcade at the Apartheid Wall that Israel has erected to seize swathes of Palestinian territory and entrench the segregation between Palestinian and Israeli-controlled areas.
He walked to the wall separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem, placed his hand on the fence, and prayed next to graffiti that read “Free Palestine” and “Bethlehem looks like the Warsaw Ghetto.”
The Reverend Munther Isaac, a Lutheran Palestinian Christian theologian, said that the Pope’s regular calls with the Holy Land Parish in Gaza had extended beyond the standard pray for peace narrative.
“He made us feel recognised at a time when many tried to dehumanise the Palestinians,” he said.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 24 April, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: