Transcript

This lecture, delivered by Rev. David Neuhaus, S.J., focused on elements in the position of the Catholic Church regarding the Holy Land and its promotion of equality, justice, and peace in Israel and Palestine. Topics included the welfare of the Christian community and the protection of the Holy Places; the interpretation of the Scriptures as a resource for promoting equality, justice, and peace; the dialogue with Jews and Muslims; and the commitment to a social teaching that insists on equality, justice, and peace. The lecture laid out these elements, tracing the history of the Holy Land since 1917.

This webinar was co-sponsored by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, Bethlehem University Foundation, Churches for Middle East Peace, the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Theology, and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.

The title of this lecture, very brief as it is, is Equality, Justice, and Peace: A Catholic Vision for Reconciliation in Israel-Palestine Today. I’m hoping that you pick up immediately something that we might not always see in our discourse about Palestine-Israel or Israel-Palestine, and it is the word equality.

We speak a lot about justice. We speak a lot about peace. Together with my guide and mentor, Patriarch Michel Sabbah, we insist that equality is a condition for justice and peace.

So, let’s begin.

Let me try and begin a picture of the parish in Gaza. I’m sure that many of you have become familiar with this tiny Roman Catholic community in the heart of Gaza City that has lived through the most atrocious two years since October 7th, 2023.

And I have imprinted on this image—I’d like to really dedicate this lecture to those in the parish and the courageous priests and sisters who led the parish through this time of horror.

I want to start with a quotation from our patriarch, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, which really is an attempt to give hope in a time of genocide.

He said on the 25th of July 2025, just a short time ago: “Our task is not to let pain fill our hearts, but to keep hope alive through concrete gestures of humanity.”

And I focus particularly on the words concrete gestures. I will not be speaking a lot about one of the factors that gives life to the Christian community, especially in these times of catastrophe, oppression, occupation, and genocide. And these are the Catholic institutions: the schools, the hospitals, and in a particular way Bethlehem University at the heart of Bethlehem, that is also a sponsor of this lecture.

So let’s now go into the matter that I want to deal with.

As an introduction, I’m going to be dealing with four elements in the concerns of the Catholic Church. I’m going to start with two traditional concerns, and those are the Christian communities and the holy places.

When the Church has spoken out about the Holy Land, particularly in the last century and a bit, they have focused on the holy places dear to all Christians and the Christian communities in the Holy Land.

That’s one element. We’ll speak about that briefly. And a second element is to try and understand what the Word of God—and the Word of God understood in Catholic tradition—says about the land. And I’d like to mention again, very briefly, some points that concern the Bible and tradition.

Then we will move again, very briefly, to concerns that became much better enunciated after the Second Vatican Council. We remember, of course, that this year we celebrate 60 years since the end of the Council and the documents that were promulgated in the wake of the Council. And what becomes more central to the Church’s concerns is the dialogue with both Jews and with Muslims, and then the engagement with the modern world in a search for—and again I bring up first the term that I’d like to underline—equality, and, of course, justice and peace.

What do we mean when we talk about the Christian communities and holy places as a concern of the Church?

So, of course, we’re talking about a concept that we use often in Christian discourse. The land is called Palestine or Israel. Christians refer to it as the Holy Land. And it is, of course, made holy by the presence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, his family, his apostles, his disciples, and those that prepared for his coming—all of those that people the Old Testament and, of course, those that instituted the earliest Church in Jerusalem, and as it spread throughout that land and beyond into the world.

So we are talking about a Holy Land and holy places. The central one, of course, being the Church of the Resurrection, as we prefer to call it in the languages of the Holy Land. It is usually referred to as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and then rose from the dead, leaving his tomb empty, which is absolutely central to Christian hope.

And of course, the Church’s concern with how these holy places are administered: an administration that is shared with other Christian communities—a first element of concern.

Second, and very, very important especially in our age: pilgrimage to these holy places and access to the Holy Land and to the holy places. Not something obvious when you have a modern state, the State of Israel, and, to some extent, the State of Palestine, that have their own set of interests about allowing people in or denying access. And of course this is a major concern.

First of all, for Christians coming from all over the world: can a Christian from Kenya or from Peru have free access to the holy places when there is, of course, a control of people coming into the Holy Land because of modern concerns about illegal immigration, etc., etc.?

But of course, what concerns us as the Church of the Holy Land is access of Christians to the holy places—and that being Christian Palestinians from places like Gaza, Ramla, Bethlehem. Can they get to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Resurrection, especially at Easter time?

Not obvious, when Israel underlines its own security needs and prevents Palestinians in general from entering into territory that is considered part of the State of Israel.

We remember, of course, in this Church concern for the Christian communities and the holy places, that we are not just speaking about any Church, but the Mother Church. Jerusalem is the Mother Church. I remind all of you Roman Catholics that Jerusalem remains for us the Mother Church. We are not focused on Rome as Mother Church, but on Jerusalem.

And then, finally, what has become more and more important are the living stones—not only the holy places and the stones with which they are built, but the living stones that constitute the Christian Church in the Holy Land, meaning the Christian faithful, the people who constitute direct descendants from the first Church, those that have preserved the faith through the centuries in circumstances that have been very difficult and probably now, in this time, more difficult than ever before.

So these are an enunciation of the concerns of the Church, and we see Michel Sabbah, who was the first Drew Christiansen Lecturer in 2022, our emeritus patriarch. May God grant him a very long life. We are in desperate need of his wisdom and his courage. He is now going to turn 93 on his next birthday, but still very, very active.

In an important letter that he wrote, Reading the Bible Today in the Land of the Bible, in 1993 he wrote about the Christians of the Holy Land:

“Could we be victims of our own salvation history which seems to favor the Jewish people and condemn us?”

I’d like all of us to listen carefully to these poignant words:

“Is that truly the will of God to which we must inexorably bow down, demanding that we deprive ourselves in favor of another people, with no possibility of appeal or discussion?”

And, of course, this relates directly to the Jewish claim on the Land of Israel, which has been used in the last 150 years to constitute a strong ideology that we know as Zionism.

And this, of course, uses—exploits to the full—the Bible, what we share with the Jewish people. And so we want to look at: what does the Christian Bible and tradition say about equality, justice, and peace in the Holy Land today, in Palestine-Israel?

And we’re immediately confronted with a very, very important problem, and that is: how do we read the Bible as Christians in your country?

And I’m sorry that I’m not with you. I was supposed to be there. But in your country you have tens of millions of people who read the Bible in a very, very literal way. And so “promised land” and “chosen people,” ripped out of the biblical context and applied to the modern world, seem to mean that the Jewish people have a right to a state called Israel in a land called Israel. And by that, Palestine, Palestinians, and Christian Palestinians as well are wiped off the map.

How do we understand the concept of “promised land”? How do we understand the concept of “chosen people”—integral to the reading of our Bible, but, of course, complex terminology when applied to the modern world?

And so I’m not going to give answers, but again point out that the Church is deeply concerned about this, and we as Catholics should come to a much clearer understanding of how problematic this terminology is and how we, as Catholics, need to exercise responsibility and particularly think about our brothers and sisters, the Christians of the Holy Land, when we use this language.

In other words, what kind of theology do we derive from the biblical text? And it can be very problematic when we think about this terminology in terms of the conflict in the Holy Land today.

A text that I find particularly helpful, a kind of hermeneutical key, is this text from the Epistle of St Paul to the Ephesians:

“But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Those far off, of course, are the Gentiles.

“For he is our peace. In his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall—that is, the hostility between us, Jews and Gentiles. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.”

I’ve, of course, put a rather provocative image where the text talks about bringing down a wall of division. I’ve put there the wall that cuts through the territory of Bethlehem, separating Bethlehemite people from Jerusalem, separating them from their land—a wall that is claimed by the Israelis to be a wall of security. Palestinians see it as a wall of separation, a wall of apartheid separation.

Let’s look at some of the other problems that we face in our reading of the Bible. We know that in the past—and we hope that we’ve put it behind us—the Bible was used to formulate a teaching of contempt about Jews. And of course, this is integral to the conflict that’s going on.

Jews lived among Christians for centuries and experienced a certain teaching of contempt when Christians saw them as Christ-killers, as people who were blind to the lordship of Jesus, who continued in their stubborn opposition to the Christian message. And that teaching of contempt led to a politics of marginalization and exile for Jews—and much worse: persecution and genocide in the history of Europe.

A theology of replacement was developed, which today we reject. Christians have replaced Jews as the chosen people. We reject that. But what does it mean? Again going back to that very difficult question of: what does it mean today to talk about a chosen people and a promised land?

And Jews, of course, were not the only victims of Christian violence, often based upon their reading of the Bible. A theology of empire meant that Christians went out in order to fight against Muslims. And, of course, we remember not only the period of the Crusades, when the aim was to liberate the tomb of Christ, but also 19th-century colonialism that saw Christendom as a superior culture that should be imposed everywhere, including on the Muslim world.

Today we have still residues of this—hopefully, to some extent, rooted out for us as Catholics—a biblicism, a biblical literalism, reading words that were written hundreds and hundreds of years ago and applying them mercilessly and irresponsibly to modern realities.

An antisemitism that developed out of the anti-Judaism of former times. And there you see Chagall’s wonderful White Crucifixion. The one on the cross is a Jesus who represents persecuted and crucified Jewish people.

But, of course, there is an opposite side, and not much healthier: a philosemitism that sees the Jews, again, not as an ordinary people with whom we have relations of equality and interaction and dialogue, but somehow above all other people.

And again, going back to the hostility towards Muslims, we are plagued with Islamophobia—something that, to my mind, we are not over. Just as we still find pockets of antisemitism, we find a lot of Islamophobia around us.

And then, as I mentioned before, Christian Zionism—reading the Bible backwards from Armageddon, the last day. We need the Jews to be restored to their land for our own Christian purposes, so that Christ can come again and bring the redemption we are waiting for. Again, the Jews are instrumentalized in a Christian theology that, to my mind, is very little Christian and very perverted.

I want to read here a statement that was put out by a body called the Jerusalem Voice for Justice. I’m very proud to belong to this group. We are led by some of our senior Church people in the Holy Land—among them Bishop Sabbah, Patriarch Sabbah, and the former Lutheran bishop Munib Younan, Greek Orthodox Bishop Atallah Hanna.

We said at Easter this year—and I think it addresses some of the concerns that are enunciated when we look at the Bible:

“To those Jews and Christians who have been led to believe that God wants Israel to annex our homeland, we want to state clearly that you have been misguided. All Palestinians and Israelis are created in the image and likeness of God. They are all equal in dignity and rights. Furthermore, our God is a God of love, who abhors violence and loves all God’s children. The Palestinians are your neighbor. The inviolable commandment in the Word of God we share is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ To expel the Palestinians from their homeland is not only an act of violence, it is sacrilege.”

And of course, we say that on the backdrop of what has been going on in Gaza for the last two years, but what has happened to the Palestinian people since 1948—the Nakba and the continuing lack of dignity of the Palestinian people, lack of freedom, and an ongoing Nakba since 1948, an ongoing catastrophe.

We move to a third concern of the Church, and that is the ongoing dialogue with Jews and Muslims. We celebrate this year, of course, the promulgation of Nostra Aetate, the document that formulated a teaching of respect for members of other religions, replacing centuries of a teaching of contempt.

This in the light of the Shoah, the Holocaust, the realization of what many Christians had been led to believe about Jews that had led to the most horrific genocide that took place in Europe in the middle of the 20th century.

But, of course, in the corridors of those Vatican halls, as Nostra Aetate was being formulated and as many of the Europeans and North Americans were thinking about the Shoah, it was also shortly after the Nakba had taken place.

And so the attempt to teach respect, starting with a deep concern for relationship with the Jewish people. You see there the wonderful statue that was inaugurated at the University of St Joseph in Philadelphia. I think Pope Francis blessed that statue—very different from the traditional representations of Synagogue and Church. Here, Synagogue and Church sitting together, twin sisters studying together.

But on the other side, a teaching of respect for Muslims, inspired by the dramatic meeting between St Francis and the Sultan at that time, meeting each other as believers and collaborating to fix a broken world. This is the hope that is born out of interreligious dialogue. Of course, it has not yet come to fruition in the Holy Land.

Paragraph 4 of Nostra Aetate, really the heart of the document: it all began with the desire of Pope John to teach respect for the Jews. And what I think is the absolute central statement of paragraph 4 is that “God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their fathers; he does not repent of the gifts he makes or of the calls he issues.”

The Church does not replace the Jewish people. We see there that wonderful photograph of Cardinal Bea, responsible for formulating at first a Jewish document, named by Pope John to do so, and here in dialogue with Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great American Jewish philosopher.

Of course, we have seen wonderful developments in Jewish-Catholic dialogue. However, even then there was an awareness that this Jewish-Catholic dialogue could be exploited for political purposes. And we have to thank the bishops that came from the Middle East, and the leading personality was Patriarch Maximos IV Saigh of the Greek Catholic Church.

And I read a little paragraph here that sums up pretty much the intuition that we could not be unaware—remain ignorant—of the political consequences and the crisis that might arise from a naïve dialogue:

“The Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity and the worldwide episcopacy cannot ignore the fact that there is a state that calls itself Israel; that that state claims to embody Judaism; that what is said of Judaism as a religion is inevitably interpreted by Israel as being said of itself as a state and a worldwide Zionist movement; that any declaration in favor of Judaism as a religion is exploited by Israel as a support given indirectly to the imperialist and expansionist politics of worldwide Zionism against the Arab countries.”

Furthermore, the Patriarch lamented:

“No one doubts that the Council does not wish this interpretation, but Israel, the state, wishes it, and the Fathers of the Council as responsible and realistic leaders must not lend themselves to this maneuver, above all in the circumstances where the tension between the Arab states and Israel is at its maximum.”

Now, I’m looking at the clock and seeing that time is running. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to jump now from this concern, formulated very clearly at the Council—where, on the one hand, there is a desire to engage in a sincere dialogue of reconciliation with the Jewish people, but at the same time a fear in many corners of the Church that this dialogue will be exploited in the name of injustice and the promotion of occupation and repression.

Let us go straight from here to a discussion of the fourth concern of the Church, which is seeking equality, justice, and peace.

Again, very, very briefly, the Church is aware that this land that we are talking about, where there is an ongoing conflict for decades, is Israel and Palestine. Two states—well, the international community says there should be two states. We certainly recognize that there are two peoples there: a Jewish people and a Palestinian Arab people.

Of course, today there are those who are questioning whether the two-state solution is still viable.

A tension between a very heartfelt sense of Jewish homecoming—we cannot deny the link of the Jews to the land and their sense that somehow this is a homeland for them—but the very real and harsh catastrophe of a Palestinian exile that was created when the Jews used military means to take their state.

And now the search for justice and peace that cannot ignore the need for equality. Palestinians are worth no less than Israelis. Jews are worth no less than Arabs. And so the road to pardon and reconciliation must still pass through a very long and difficult process.

We don’t have time to read this, but I believe very strongly that the problem has its genesis, at least on the international level, with the promise of the British to create a Jewish homeland, a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine—a decision of the British that was made with no consultation of the Palestinian people, the indigenous people of Palestine.

And, by the way, in that Palestinian population there was an indigenous Arabic-speaking Jewish population that formed part and parcel of Palestine at the time. Of course, the British enabled hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing Europe to make their way to Palestine, changing the demography of the country.

Interesting to note that the Vatican was immediately aware—the Holy See was aware—and the Secretary of State pointed out that although they had no objection to Jews receiving equal status, they could not accept that Jews be granted a privileged position. And the Vatican in those early years was very hostile to Jewish nationalism, to Zionism, although they recognized that Jews have their place within the fabric of Palestinian society.

Remarks that show how, slowly but surely, the Israeli state—first the Zionist movement, then the Israeli state—succeeded in conquering more and more territory, and how the Palestinians were pushed out of their homeland. A reality that remains the reality today, a reality that can only be solved if real dialogue and a real historic reckoning take place.

Interestingly, it was Paul VI in his Christmas message of 1975 that, from the Church’s point of view, for the first time referred to the Palestinian people as a people. And I’d like to read this citation from his Christmas message:

“Although we are conscious of the still very recent tragedies which led the Jewish people to search for safe protection in a state of its own, sovereign and independent—and, in fact, precisely because we are aware of this—we would like to ask the sons and daughters of this people to recognize the rights and legitimate aspirations of another people, which have also suffered for a long time: the Palestinian people.”

Until that time, the Church had seen the Palestinians as poor refugees. Here, a recognition that they constitute a people with legitimate rights who have suffered much in the loss of their homeland.

I go on, and I perhaps will end with this, seeing as time has run out. In 2019, the local Church published a very important statement. And when I say the local Church, I mean the bishops of the Holy Land. And here, I think, is a vision that is very far from our reality right now, but can certainly serve as a guiding vision for our hope for equality, justice, and peace in the Holy Land. This is what the bishops said in 2019:

“We promote a vision”—sorry, something else—“a vision according to which everyone in this Holy Land has full equality, the equality befitting all men and women, created equal in God’s own image and likeness. We believe that equality, whatever political solutions might be adopted, is a fundamental condition for a just and lasting peace. We have lived together in this land in the past. Why should we not live together in the future, too? This is our vision for Jerusalem and the whole land called Israel and Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

I’m going to end with that because I see the time has run out, and I don’t want to deprive those people who would like to pose questions or make comments from having the ability to do that.

Thank you very much, Scott. Back to you.

Thank you so much, Father Neuhaus, for that, um, comprehensive—given the time—uh, reflection on the challenges right now in Israel-Palestine. The floor is open for questions. You can enter these into the question-and-answer function or into the chat box, and we’ll pick up on the questions. I do have, uh, one question, and then there’s another question I’ll say in advance on the questions-and-answers: to put up, put up please, the territory maps again and explain that a bit more, if you want to follow, Neuhaus, do that. I guess that’s the map they’re talking about. Do you want to briefly, uh, elaborate on that, and then I’ll ask the question?

Yes. Thanks.

Very, very briefly, let’s go through them.

1917: we see Palestine as part of the Ottoman Empire. Before the British conquered Palestine in 1917, already by then, in December 1917, they had published their commitment to creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1937, 20 years later: the British Mandate is what is administering Palestine. There have been waves of unrest as increasing numbers of Jews immigrate to Palestine, and Palestinians feel that they are facing a dual enemy: the British administration and the Jews that have been empowered to set up a state within a state, the Jewish Agency. And so the Peel Commission, for the first time, suggests partitioning Palestine, and that’s what we see in the second map.

1947, 10 years later: the Peel Commission led nowhere. The Second World War broke out. 1947, the British realize that they have created a hell in Palestine and they want to get out, and so they call in the United Nations. And the United Nations, on the 29th of November 1947, makes a decision that the country should be divided into two. And this is what is now considered international law: two states, a state for the Jewish people and a state for the Palestinian people.

I do want to stress that the Jewish people at that time constituted about one-third of the population. They received much more than half the territory. And the Palestinian people, who constituted two-thirds, received less than half the territory.

To that I want to add that the vast majority of the Jewish people—92% of the Jewish people—had arrived in Palestine over the previous 30 years. So we’re dealing with a situation that, for those focused on the Shoah—Westerners, white people, Europeans and North Americans—there seemed to be some justice in giving the Jews a homeland. They needed a place of safety.

But for Palestinians, for Arabs, and for many people throughout the Third World, this was very colonial, and just at a time when colonialism is breaking up. So that’s the 1947 plan.

What you see as the map 1967 is: the 1947 plan was never executed because war broke out and Israel conquered 78% of the land. And that is what we today recognize as the internationally recognized borders of the State of Israel, on 78% of the land.

But the other 22%—what you see in the 1967 map as the green areas—were conquered by the State of Israel in 1967, bringing everything under Israeli control.

What you see in the 2020 map is what the Trump From Peace to Prosperity plan offered to the Palestinians as a kind of fragmented homeland—not being a sovereign state, but being an administration that would administer Palestinian territory.

So that’s, very briefly, those maps that are also an attempt to show that we’re dealing with a situation of extreme injustice and the need for some kind of redress that will look over history and see where we can somehow rectify what has been catastrophic over the last more than a hundred years.

Thank you, Father. There are a couple of questions. I’m going to start with the one most recently, and then I’ll go back to the first one, which is related to my own question.

So from Marcus Hyde, one of our guests, writes: “In 2024, the US Catholic bishops put out a report which equated criticism of Zionism with antisemitism. How does the Church in Palestine-Israel relate to this pronouncement? Were local Palestinian Christians consulted about this report?”

So I think that the report that is being referred to is a report that was written by the Catholic bishops together with a Jewish organization in the United States. And I can tell you that we, as Christians in the Holy Land, wrote a very, very strong letter to the Catholic bishops, saying that we could not understand how they could bring this out without consulting us.

And, of course, it is very, very dangerous to conflate antisemitism, which is a real phenomenon in the world—which we condemn with all our might—and criticism of the State of Israel and criticism of Zionist ideology, even the rejection of Zionism.

The Jewish people cannot be conflated with the Zionist movement, even if many Jews define themselves as Zionists. And we must distinguish very, very carefully between anti-Zionism—the criticism of that ideology, perfectly legitimate—and the hatred of Jews, the rejection of Jews as Jews. These two things should not, cannot, and must not be conflated, as that report certainly does.

Thank you very much. We have a question from Mary Johnson that I’ll tag on to myself. She writes: “I love this vision and I agree. It’s the only way to have a true peace, but Israel has become so violent and racist that I can’t see how we can help bring it about. What can we do to help make this vision—meaning the vision you’re setting forth, Father Neuhaus—how can we make that vision real?”

I will add to that question, and I also had similar—and that’s to the concept in the principle of Catholic Social Teaching of solidarity, and wondering how we build—what is the state of solidarity in Israel-Palestine today? How do we build it? What difference might it make in a situation where we have tremendous suffering on the part of Palestinians, and also Jews in Israel and beyond Israel who are heartbroken by that suffering?

How do we build solidarity with various groups who are suffering, beginning with among Catholics and Christians, but also extending out to those who are equally in solidarity with the suffering? What’s the status of that potential enactment of solidarity? Where do we go from here? And then to Mary’s question more generally: how do we make your vision real and the vision of peace, justice, and equality that the Church embraces?

So, let me state that one of the biggest problems with thinking anything can be different in Palestine-Israel is the idea, very much spread by those who don’t want a change in the status quo: “It has always been like this; it is like this; and it will always be like this.”

This is the vision that is promoted by the current Israeli government. The best we can do is manage the conflict. Thinking about any solution to the conflict is naïve, stupid, dangerous, etc., etc. And I think that this vision is absolutely evil and locks us into a situation where we just accept occupation, repression, and genocide—what has been going on.

And so I would say that it’s very important to know history. This is one thing that we absolutely cannot compromise on. We must go back and carefully read the history of Palestine-Israel. And among the most accurate presenters of that history are some of the people who are Israelis and Israeli researchers and historians and who present the facts.

If we know history, then we can also begin to imagine something different from what we have in the present. In fact, what I’m suggesting is that our hope can be truly anchored in a knowledge of history. And, as you saw what the bishops said, it hasn’t always been like this. There was never paradise—paradise is not on this earth—but there was a time when Jews, Muslims, and Christians lived together as part of one social fabric. And that broke down when—and I name it as a beginning point, a genesis—when the Balfour Declaration makes that strong separation between Jews and non-Jews in the land and caters for a national homeland for the Jews, promising that this will not in any way damage the rights of the non-Jews. But that division, which is racist, needs to be dismantled.

We need to think of ways in which that can be brought down. Now, when you talk about solidarity, Scott, I think it’s important to recognize that there are more and more Jewish people in the United States, in Israel, and in the rest of the world who are waking up to a very sad reality: that Zionism, which was supposed to somehow be a protection for Jews, has become an element of incredible danger for Jews; that the antisemitism today that is alive and well is being motivated—is being motivated—by the situation in Palestine, by the images that are coming out of Gaza.

And so the rethinking that is going on is a little spark of hope in a very, very dark reality.

Finally, I want to say one word. I was born in South Africa. I was born in 1962. I ran away in the late 70s. And the situation in South Africa reached its darkest, most repressive period in the late 80s. In the middle of the 90s, the apartheid regime came to an end.

And I don’t think that there were too many people who could have predicted that, even at the end of the 80s. This, for me, is real hope. Of course, what we need in Palestine is a discourse that opens up a horizon in which Jews and Palestinians can actually share a common horizon. And that’s what we don’t have. We don’t have significant political leaders speaking about that right now.

And I think that this can be a very important contribution of the Church’s discourse: a sane discourse that speaks about—again, I put as central—equality as the key to justice and peace.

Thank you very much. Because the time is short, I’m going to put two questions together that are on the list, one from Ivon Montalongo, one from Philip Fernandez.

And they ask: what can we do, especially in the United States, given the current situation from the United States? What can we do to promote awareness and to fight for justice? And Fernandez’s question is: why does the US Catholic Church ignore the Palestinian Christians, dismissing their suffering?

First of all, I guess I’d ask: do you agree with that assessment? And if that is true, why is it the case? So what can we do in the US, and why does there seem to be insufficient attention given by the US Catholic Church to the suffering of Palestinians?

So if you permit, I won’t answer the second question because I live far away. I’m not a United States citizen. I’m not subject to the United States Catholic Church. And I would really hope that that judgment on the Church would not be true—that there are people who are totally insensitive and others who are very sensitive.

But let’s talk more about what can you do. And I think that there are many, many things that you can do. The situation makes us feel totally helpless. We see the images of destruction and starvation and genocide in Gaza and the destruction, ongoing destruction, in the West Bank, and of course the discrimination and repression that is also the fate of Palestinians inside Israel who are citizens of Israel, and we feel hopeless.

But I think we need to combat that hopelessness by an awareness of the fact that we can do something. Especially now I address Christians and Catholics in particular.

Number one, we need to pray. And that might sound very spiritualized, but I think that praying also means putting words on a situation that we bring before the Lord. And putting words on the situation helps us to become more aware of the situation.

Praying, of course, is not enough. Once we have formulated our prayers, we are then ready to begin to speak out—speak truth to power. Again, I’d insist that it’s based upon prayer, because we do not want to fall into antisemitic, anti-Jewish tropes that have haunted Christian discourse through the centuries. We want to be sure that we’re speaking a language of equality, justice, and peace for everyone.

Again, speaking out, speaking truth to power is something we can all do in the situations in which we find ourselves—at school, at work, at university—where we hear distressing discourse about Israel-Palestine based upon biblical fundamentalism, stereotypes, racism, Islamophobia, etc.

Then, for those that can, help the Church of Palestine to live this vision, as we try to do in our institutions. Again, our institutions are the incarnation of this vision, where really in our schools, universities, hospitals, social welfare structures, we try to present this idea of equality, justice, and peace in our lived reality. We’re a tiny group. We don’t even constitute 2% of the population in all of Palestine-Israel. But that witness is a radiant one.

And number four: come and visit. Come and see for yourselves. Many Christians don’t have access to Palestine, because they can’t get in because of visa restrictions and security restrictions. But US citizens in general can come. And come and spend time with the living stones so that you can carry back your testimony.

And I think that these are things that really we can do. If you can’t come, try and send a representative of your community, of your parish, of your school, of your university, to come and make contact with the living stones.

And finally, enable the living stones to speak directly to you. There is so much wonderful material on YouTube. There are so many brilliant Palestinians living in the United States and those that have gone around visiting. Two young theologians have just brought out a book in Orbis Press, The Olive Tree, John Munayer and Sami Munayyer. They went around the States speaking to many, many different audiences.

Again, welcome the Palestinian voice in. That doesn’t mean exclude Jewish voices—not at all. But bring the Palestinian voices in and allow them to speak directly to you as well. So I think these are things that you can do.

Excellent. Uh, we have too many questions to address in the time remaining. I’m going to just ask one more that was posted, and then we’ll conclude after your answer, Father.

This is a question about the perception that, um, in some commentary, particularly from this country, from the United States, it is said, “Well, we should care about the Palestinian Christians,” as if other Palestinians don’t count.

So the concrete question is: can you speak more about the relationship between the Church and their non-Christian neighbors in Palestinian society?

So, excellent question. And I would say: yes, we must—and you saw I put it first—we must be concerned with Christian Palestinians, our brothers and sisters in faith.

But let us remember that our Christian brothers and sisters in faith live totally integrated in a society in which Muslims are the majority. And if Christians are to survive, if Christians are to have a good life, it means that their neighbors are to have a good life as well.

And so advocating for Christian Palestinians means that we are also advocating for Palestine as Palestine, because Palestine is the home of our Christian brothers and sisters. They do not live in a vacuum. They do not live in a ghetto. They live integrated in a society. And advocating for Christian Palestinians means advocating for Palestinian society as a whole.

I would say, stretch it even more: that advocating for Palestinian Christians, Christian Palestinians, is also advocating for a healthy conversion—conversion to good health—of Israelis as well, because ultimately Christians will prosper if the land and all of its inhabitants prosper.

And so in our concern for this Church, which is not just any other Church—this is the Mother Church, this is where it all began—in our concern for Christian Palestinians, our concern is automatically and absolutely naturally extended to all those that our Christian Palestinian brothers and sisters live with. That means, first and foremost, Muslims, but also Jews and everyone else who lives in the Holy Land.

Thank you, Father Neuhaus.

I will end—like to end, if you allow me—just to read this little message that we published in 2024, because I think it says something important about where we are going as Christians.

Yes, sure. And then I’ll have a quick closing. Go ahead, please.

Okay. So:

“The experience of Easter obliges us to proclaim: the Risen Lord has triumphed over death and evil, and we are witnesses to this. The Resurrection is not our response to violence. It is our very identity as Christians, called to preach hope when hope seems impossible, to witness to life when our day-to-day reality seems to promise only death.

This hope, in our smallness—in mustard seeds, yeast in bread—translates into our stubborn insistence on continuing to imagine a better common future, and then setting out to the work of living it now.”

Thank you.

Thank you, Father. Um, I think we would all agree with the comments of our colleague here at the Kroc Institute, Lisa Schirch, who sends a note of appreciation for the clear analysis of your presentation and is grateful to learn of your work. And I think we all will agree with that.

You’ve given us a clear and compelling, stimulating presentation. We thank you for doing so, and we thank all of you, the many of you who are part of this conversation—to be continued.

Thank you very much.