October 7: 'A cry to Heaven to implore peace'

By Andrea Tornielli

One year ago, Hamas' inhumane terrorist attack against Israeli citizens, mostly civilians—children, young people, the elderly, entire families—brought the world a step closer to the abyss of a third world war.

Already marred by Russia's aggression in Ukraine and many other forgotten wars, the world has witnessed the dramatic resurgence of the never-extinguished Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The tragic toll of that day of massacres, which cost over a thousand lives, was further exacerbated by the heartbreaking and still unresolved ordeal of the hostages, many of whom have been killed in the following months.

Tragic, too, is the outcome of the Israeli response, which led to vast destruction in Gaza and claimed nearly 42,000 lives, including thousands of children.

Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes and are displaced, living in precarious conditions, waiting for a ceasefire, and fearing the next bomb or the killer drone with its “collateral damage,” meaning innocent civilian deaths.

Targeted executions by bombing, missiles fired at Israel by Hezbollah militias from Lebanon and later by Iran, the Israeli army's invasion of Lebanon: these events mark an escalation that currently seems to have no end.

Governments are incapable of ending the carnage in the Middle East, as well as the bloody war that is ravaging Ukraine.

While huge sums are being spent on the arms race, diplomacy is conspicuously absent from the international scene. Politics is silent, and words like “negotiations” and “dialogue” have become unspeakable. No one seems able to stop this spiral of unprecedented violence.

On the first anniversary of the October 7, 2023, massacre, on the day the Church celebrates Our Lady of the Rosary, Pope Francis has called for a special day of prayer and fasting for peace.

Throughout these months, the Bishop of Rome has continued to cry out, unheeded, calling for a ceasefire and paths to peace.

Today, this cry becomes even more collective and is directed to Heaven, in the hope that the Lord of history will open the hearts of the leaders of nations, leading to “honest negotiations” and “honorable compromises” to end the madness of war.

Because even the most imperfect and fragile peace is preferable to the horrors of war, even that which is considered the most “just.”