Page 46 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

such as ‘Gas the Jews’ heard at the steps of the Opera House in Sydney a mere two days after those gruesome atrocities were committed.
In a statement, ‘Praying for a Lasting Peace’, issued after the regular, scheduled November meeting of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC), the bishops opt for the ‘safe’ route of a generalised lament for ‘the suffering of people in the Holy Land’, adding unspecified pleas for ‘justice’ in ‘the long history that has led to the current violence in the Middle East’, and a motherhood call ‘for the triumph of human dignity’. The statement also includes a call ‘for immediate access for humanitarian agencies’.
What is not said has left Jewish communities, and many of their Catholic friends, reeling in dismay and a sense of betrayal. The bishops make no explicit mention of October 7 or the atrocities of Hamas. Not a single word about the hostages, among whom dozens of children were taken into captivity. Not a whisper about standing against antisemitic terror. Instead, what we have is a generalised appeal for ‘peace’, with a glimmer of recognition of Palestinian suffering, yet no equivalent acknowledgement of Jewish pain.
To fully appreciate the impact of this silence on the Catholic Church’s relationship with Jewish communities in Australia, one needs to be aware of a threefold historical backdrop.
First, the crimes committed by Hamas amounted to the bloodiest day of terror experienced by the Jewish people since the Holocaust and were characterised by a barbarity and sadism that plunged Jewish communities back into the memory of the atrocities committed by the Nazis, and left the nation traumatised. This is what differentiates the attacks of October 7 from any other violent episode against Jews in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and why oft-heard
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