"We beg you to use it. Call for an immediate bi-lateral ceasefire, the release of all hostages and those held in Israeli detention..." Open Letter of Ecumenical Group Pax Christi

 

An open Letter to our Christian Faith leaders.
“In our pain, anguish, and lament, we have searched for God, and found Him under the rubble of Gaza” Rev. Munther Isaac

The unthinkable violence in the Holy Land has shaken us. The horrific brutality of the Hamas assault on 7 October has been met with months of unrelenting bombardment causing unthinkable death, injury, and destruction. With the denial of the essentials of life – water, food, shelter, medicine - and a litany of dehumanising and incendiary rhetoric, we’ve watched the worst impulses of revenge and rage take hold.
As we approach Holy Week, Pax Christi International, an organisation dedicated to nonviolence as the only path to a sustainable peace, implores you to speak out forcefully and often calling for an end to this carnage. Not one more life should be sacrificed. In sermons and parish messages, in pastoral letters and statements you have the unique power to awaken the hearts and minds of the faithful. We beg you to use it. Call for an immediate bi-lateral ceasefire, the release of all hostages and those held in Israeli detention and the restoration of critical UNRWA funding.

Our resolve and courage to stand with the powerless is being tested. We look to you, our spiritual leaders, for a prophetic voice to denounce the evil of war and the killing of so many innocent men, women, and children…some barely in this world for hours.
Do we speak out on behalf of the most vulnerable…those caught in the crosshair of bullets and bombs? Does our collective Christian voice echo the teachings of Jesus or has it, in its tepid silence, become another weapon?
We shudder to think that the cries of the living stones of Palestine have fallen on deaf ears. When will our sisters and brothers in Gaza know that the Church has not abandoned them? Or, like Jesus, will they be left to suffer alone in a garden of rubble? Have we too fallen asleep?
The time to speak is now. There is not a minute to waste.

Source: https://paxchristi.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/An-open-Letter-to-our-Christian-Faith-leaders.pdf

Pax Christi International is a Catholic peace movement with 120 member organisations worldwide that promotes peace, respect of human rights, justice & reconciliation throughout the world.
Grounded in the belief that peace is possible and that vicious cycles of violence and injustice can be broken, Pax Christi International addresses the root causes & destructive consequences of violent conflict and war.