Cardinal Pizzaballa, visiting Detroit, warns against confusing hope with quick political fixes in Gaza while praising local Christians’ refusal to hate amid devastation.
Newsroom (08/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and grand prior of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, arrived in metropolitan Detroit on Dec. 4 for a four-day pastoral visit carrying a message shaped by the rubble of Gaza and the endurance of its tiny Christian community.
Speaking at a Dec. 5 press conference alongside Detroit Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger and Chaldean Bishop Francis Y. Kalabat, the cardinal cautioned against equating hope with imminent political solutions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Hope is a complicated word,” Pizzaballa said. “You must not confuse hope with a political solution, which will not arrive soon, not in Gaza, the Holy Land, or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If you put your hope in this, you will be frustrated.”
Instead, he insisted, hope must be rooted in faith and human desire, and nurtured when institutions falter by ordinary people choosing to “think differently” and “act differently” toward one another.
Christians now number fewer than 500 in Gaza — barely 1% of the population — and constitute roughly 2% in both Israel and the West Bank. Emigration continues, and the strip is served by only one Catholic parish, Holy Family, which has become a refuge for hundreds of displaced persons.
Describing conditions since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack, Pizzaballa painted a grim picture: most homes, hospitals, and schools reduced to rubble, families living in tents as winter nears, and food scarce despite aid deliveries — much of which reaches markets rather than the cashless population.
When he visited after the short-lived October ceasefire, he brought chicken to the parish compound. “It was the first meat they had seen in nine months,” he recalled.
Yet sacramental life persists. Daily Mass, vespers, rosary, and Eucharistic adoration continue alongside school activities, First Communions, and even a wedding. Pizzaballa said he has never heard anger from the sheltered Christians.
One evening, amid falling bombs, the former director of a hospital told him: “You know, bishop, we Christians have a problem. Amidst all the violence, we are not able to hate them.”
Emerging from “survival mode” after the Oct. 9 ceasefire, Gazans are now asking practical questions about rebuilding, governance, and their children’s future, the patriarch reported.
Archbishop Weisenburger, welcoming the cardinal, called the conflict too complex for “sound bites” and acknowledged American responsibility, noting that “too many of those bombs that killed some 70,000 people… were from us.” He urged U.S. Catholics to help rebuild, announcing that Detroit-area donors had already pledged roughly $500,000 for Holy Land needs.
In his homily to the Chaldean community at St. Thomas Chaldean Church in West Bloomfield, Pizzaballa condemned the Hamas attack as “not acceptable at all” while describing Israel’s response in Gaza as “an even more difficult answer.” He stressed that lasting change requires recognizing Palestinians “as people with their dignity and a right of self-determination,” and reiterated that the Church is “not against Israel.”
During the visit, the cardinal prayed at the tomb of Blessed Solanus Casey, received a first-class relic of the Detroit saint for Jerusalem, and accepted relics of four Chaldean martyrs. He also met seminarians at Sacred Heart Seminary and celebrated with Franciscans at St. Bonaventure Monastery.
A fundraising dinner Dec. 5 at St. John’s Resort drew some 500 people. The venue, owned by the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation, directs 100% of net profits from such events to charity.
The war’s economic fallout extends to the West Bank, especially Bethlehem, where plummeting tourism has devastated Christian livelihoods. Author and pilgrimage leader Steve Ray, preparing to bring more than 50 pilgrims Dec. 28–Jan. 6, said 70–80% of local Christian revenue normally comes from visitors and dismissed safety fears amplified by social media.
Cardinal Pizzaballa is scheduled to conclude his Detroit visit with Mass at the Shrine of the Little Flower, home to relics of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, before returning to Jerusalem.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from CNA
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