Pope Francis will be remembered for many things: his humility, his gentle demeanor, his compassion for the poor, and his tireless calls for peace in a fractured world.
He was the first pontiff to take the name “Francis,” in tribute to the saint who championed the poor and the powerless. And true to that inspiration, he steered the Catholic Church through turbulence – from the European refugee crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic – while taking long-overdue steps toward confronting sexual abuse within its walls.
But on one front, the pope’s moral compass faltered time and again: his relationship with the State of Israel. From the very beginning of his papacy, Francis struck a markedly different tone toward the Jewish state than toward its adversaries.
His 2014 trip to the region was rife with symbolic gestures meant to suggest balance where there was none. He visited both Yad Vashem and the separation barrier, where a photo showed him resting his head on the wall in a manner similar to pilgrims visiting the Western Wall.
He laid a wreath at the grave of Theodor Herzl, an unprecedented act by a pontiff – but also entered the West Bank not via Israel, but through Jordan, and celebrated Mass in Bethlehem beside Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Later, he would invite Abbas and then-President Shimon Peres to the Vatican for a prayer summit.
That apparent symmetry was soon undermined by clear statements and actions that betrayed a disturbing bias. In 2015, Francis warmly received Abbas at the Vatican and reportedly called him an “angel of peace” – a truly baffling characterization of a man who has glorified terrorism, funded the families of suicide bombers, and denied the Holocaust.
This statement, carried by many media outlets, was denied by a papal spokesperson. In the same visit, the Vatican finalized a treaty formally recognizing the “State of Palestine,” a move condemned by Israel as “a hasty step” that undermined peace efforts and ignored Jewish historic rights in Jerusalem.
Time and again, Israel expressed dismay at the Vatican’s tendency to elevate Palestinian narratives while brushing aside Israeli concerns. Then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni put it plainly at the time: “I regret that the Vatican decided to participate in a step that blatantly ignores the history of the Jewish people in Israel and Jerusalem.”
The Vatican’s posture under Francis consistently privileged a politicized version of the Palestinian story over the complex reality on the ground. Whether during the canonization of two Palestinian nuns in 2015, or in statements following clashes in Jerusalem in 2021, the Holy See often seemed more interested in defending Palestinian identity than acknowledging Israel’s security dilemmas.
Criticizing Israel after October 7
Even after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, Pope Francis condemned both sides in a manner that was troublingly lopsided. While he did denounce Hamas’s initial slaughter, he quickly shifted to criticizing Israel’s military response as “cruelty, this is not war.” He went so far as to call Israeli airstrikes “terrorism” after two Palestinian Christian women were killed in Gaza.
No mention was made, in those same statements, of Hamas’s use of human shields, its embedding in civilian infrastructure, or its well-documented exploitation of churches and hospitals for military purposes.
As Israel’s campaign continued, the pope’s rhetoric intensified. In November 2024, he openly questioned whether Israel’s military campaign constituted a genocide. One of his final public addresses, read aloud on Easter Sunday due to illness, described the situation in Gaza as “dramatic and deplorable.” He called for a ceasefire and the release of hostages, yes – but the criticism of Israel was clear and constant, while Hamas’s atrocities were diluted into vague moral equivalence.
To his credit, Francis did call on Hamas to release the hostages and condemned antisemitism in his final Easter message. But these gestures felt obligatory, coming after months of slanted commentary and silence on Hamas’s continued aggression.
Even in his calls for peace, the pope too often spoke as if Israel’s existence was incidental to the conflict, rather than fundamental to the peace.
There is a tragic irony in the fact that the pope who sought to open the Catholic Church’s heart to the marginalized, who emphasized humility and reconciliation, struggled in exhibiting the same balance when it came to the world’s only Jewish state.
In the Jewish tradition, we say, “zikhrono livracha” (“May his memory be a blessing”). And in many ways, Pope Francis’s memory will be just that. But not, sadly, when it comes to Israel. On that front, history may record him as a missed opportunity – another well-meaning pope who failed to rise above the politics of the moment, and in doing so, lent moral cover to those who seek Israel’s destruction.
