Page 11 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

to find their voice. I recall my own paralysis on October 8, as I staggered about, shocked and dazed, trying to process the horror unfolding in Israel. Also, I understood that nothing moves quickly for institutional Catholic channels. Yet, as hours and days turned into a week, then weeks into months, it became apparent that, with rare exceptions, Catholic empathy for victims of violence had faltered in finding public expression for Jews and Israelis. Even when those Jews and Israelis were unarmed civilians, as young as children and babies, brutally murdered, tortured, raped, mutilated, abducted, it seemed that the Catholic Church could not muster a strong, united voice of public protest in defence of these victims. Even as the tally of antisemitic incidents climbed and Jewish parents in Australia became fearful for their children walking the streets of their own suburbs, the voices of Australian Catholic leaders continued to be rare, hesitant, muted, or silent.
Into that eerie and confusing silence, I began to write. Over the next ten months I would write some 25 opinion pieces and reflections—most of which appear in this book—in an effort to speak to the Australian Catholic community, seeking to awaken voices from within that community, so as to reflect the commitments of a post-Holocaust, post–Vatican II church. Why the Catholic community in particular? Because this is the Christian tradition I know best, having been born and raised a Catholic and having spent decades actively involved in the life and mission of the Catholic Church.
To be clear, it was not the politics of the Middle East but the Catholic silence in the face of antisemitism that drove me to write. Everywhere I looked and listened, Palestinian suffering was, understandably and rightly, a matter of deep concern to the Catholic community. This was the story being energetically taken up by Catholic reporters and commentators as the war
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