In 2014, Pope Francis’s unscheduled stop at the Israeli apartheid wall in Bethlehem, adjacent to “Free Palestine” graffiti, marked a pivotal moment in his papacy. This act came to symbolize his profound engagement with the plight of the Palestinian people, an engagement that gained renewed urgency with the ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people.
With his passing, and in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, many Palestinians as well as marginalized communities globally mourn the loss of a crucial spiritual advocate and ally. Pope Francis’s legacy extends beyond Palestine; it embodies compassion to all, resistance to Eurocentric power structures, and unwavering solidarity with the oppressed. As global upheavals, particularly in Palestine, persist, it is imperative to reflect on and perpetuate his legacy to foster a more just and decolonized future. This reflection on Pope Francis’s legacy remains critical even as the bombs fall and starvation continues, and there is no accountability for those who have committed and continue to commit these crimes.
The Visibility of Palestinians
Despite the live-streamed genocide in Gaza and the intensification of the occupation and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Palestinian suffering has been normalized. Following decades of settler colonialism and constant dehumanization, Palestinians have been left invisible, their pain muted, and their lives disregarded. Decolonial thinker Frantz Fanon observed how the colonized are reduced to an “animal existence,” stripped of dignity in ways that make their suffering not only bearable to the oppressor but structurally permissible. In this sense, Israel’s siege on Gaza and erection of the apartheid wall are not just physical barriers, but instruments designed to erase Palestinian humanity.
The erasure of Palestinians thus does not occur only through their physical annihilation by bombs and starvation tactics. It also happens through the complicity of individuals and institutions that maintain or accommodate the colonial status quo, a complicity that fits the definition of what Hannah Arendt termed the “banality of evil.” Yet in this context of systemic invisibility, Pope Francis emerged as a rare global voice who, to a meaningful degree, resisted this erasure and affirmed Palestinian humanity on the world stage.
Israel’s siege on Gaza and erection of the Apartheid Wall are not just physical barriers, but instruments designed to erase Palestinian humanity.
His 2014 pilgrimage to the Holy Land was not a routine diplomatic visit. It was a journey marked by empathy and moral clarity, where he was attentive to the literal and symbolic walls that structure Palestinian life—walls that define political, social, economic, and ethnic boundaries. Pope Francis did not repeat sanitized, Eurocentric platitudes; instead, he aligned himself with the marginalized. His intentional stop at the Apartheid Wall created a crack in the dominant narrative that Palestinians are a violent mass that are to be feared and therefore need to be controlled. Instead, it reflected the reality that they are a people yearning to live with dignity in their homeland despite the brutal grip of occupation.
For many Palestinians, this unscheduled and spontaneous stop followed by prayer was an unfamiliar but deeply affirming experience: the feeling of being seen. It was reminiscent of Christ’s healing of the haemorrhaging woman (Mark 9:25–34). In this story, Jesus defies social taboos when he stops and restores humanity to a woman cast aside by the world.
In his final years, even as illness overtook him, Pope Francis continued to offer radical visibility to Palestinian suffering. His statement—echoing the conclusions of legal and human rights experts—that the atrocities in Gaza bear the hallmarks of genocide was a powerful and necessary intervention. Pope Francis’s call for a thorough investigation shattered the dangerous complicity of silence among world leaders, including within the Vatican itself. Beyond statements, he conducted daily phone calls with members of the Holy Family Church in Gaza, embodying a form of solidarity that was not abstract but grounded in direct pastoral solicitude.
Through both his public declarations and private acts, Pope Francis offered a holistic witness to Palestinian humanity. He may not have had the power to halt the genocide, but through his papacy—from the 2014 stopping at the Apartheid Wall to his final sermon in 2025 calling for a ceasefire—he made the suffering of Palestinians visible in a world led by those who are determined to look away.
Sacredness and Institutional Solidarity
For many of those who stand in solidarity with the Palestinians’ cause, and aim to protect their lives, Pope Francis has been an ally. His role as the spiritual father of the Catholic world, one that includes Palestinian Christians, imbued his stop at the Apartheid Wall in 2014 with profound spiritual significance. That act was not merely symbolic, political, or diplomatic, it was a liturgical gesture of resistance, a sacred disruption of the empire. In placing his head against the wall and praying, Pope Francis enacted a theology of incarnation and solidarity, embodying the Church’s preferential option for the oppressed. His stillness proclaimed loud and clear what the Church must never overlook: that God’s preferential option is always for the oppressed. To truly follow Christ is to draw near to the wounds of those who are overlooked in the world. In this way, the wall becomes a holy altar for lament.
Through that gesture, Pope Francis reorients the spiritual and prophetic imagination of the Church. He names Palestinian suffering as not only a human rights issue but also a reality of people crucified, echoing the suffering Christ. Many Palestinians, confronting the threat of their imminent annihilation, echo Christ’s plea in Gethsemane: “Let this cup pass.” In contrast to the silence preferred by the empires of the world and those who choose to remain asleep, just as the disciples did in the garden, Pope Francis makes visible what power seeks to erase, stirring conscience where indifference prevails. In this way, stopping and praying at the wall, as well as his daily calls to the Holy Family parish community in Gaza became a faithful act of solidarity. Such sacred acts pointed to God’s presence among the poor, dispossessed, and the oppressed. Pope Francis is also demanding a divine act for justice in the face of structural sin.
In placing his head against the wall and praying, Pope Francis enacted a theology of incarnation and solidarity, embodying the Church’s preferential option for the oppressed.
Sacredness and religious expression are often organized and mediated through institutions that can both constrain and amplify spiritual and moral witness. Indeed, many of today’s most potent prophetic voices regarding Palestine have emerged from outside institutional walls, even as powerful institutions have actively attempted to suppress the global solidarity movement for Palestine. Yet Pope Francis, through his pastoral approach, represents a prophetic voice from within an institution often perceived by Palestinians as complicit in their colonization.
The affirmation of Palestinian humanity, enacted both through acknowledging their suffering and validating their political aspirations, powerfully demonstrates that even amidst the historical failures of many Christian institutions concerning Gaza and Palestine, work needs to be done inside and around these spaces. These voices remind us that while institutions may often be slow to act, they remain vital spaces where moral authority is contested and redefined. It is crucial to recognize prophetic allies within institutions. Institutional comrades matter profoundly because they possess the capacity to shape narratives, mobilize resources, and influence global norms, especially when it comes to audiences that the pro-Palestinian camp may not have access to.
Resisting Eurocentricity
Pope Francis’s witness to the humanity of Palestinians and their aspirations for freedom stands as a powerful moral and theological statement. Combined with his broader commitment to the poor and oppressed and his identity as a leader from the Global South, Pope Francis’s witness establishes a legacy that positions Palestinians as a matter of prophetic concern within the Vatican. His stance also challenges the Eurocentric discourses and attitudes that have long shaped Christian engagement with the question of Israel and Palestine. This is especially significant in light of post–Vatican II Jewish-Christian dialogue, which often excludes Palestinian Christians and remains silent in the face of settler colonialism and genocide.
Beyond this exclusion, the crimes of the Holocaust and European antisemitism have rightly produced a deep sense of guilt among western Christians, particularly theologians. However, this guilt has become a theological and moral stumbling block, leading many to idolize Jewish suffering while ignoring or denying the suffering of Palestinians. As a result, Jewish-Christian dialogue has too often become a protected space for Zionist assumptions rather than a forum for honest theological and ethical engagement with colonialism in all its forms.
Institutional comrades matter profoundly because they possess the capacity to shape narratives, mobilize resources, and influence global norms, especially when it comes to audiences that the pro-Palestinian camp may not have access to.
Pope Francis, through his solidarity with Palestinians, confronts the limitations of western Jewish-Christian dialogue and calls the Church to reflect on its moral and theological failures. This challenge is both necessary and urgent, offering a path toward a more holistic commitment to the protection and liberation of Palestinian lives, both Muslim and Christian, alongside Jewish lives, whether Israeli or international, without denying or excluding the suffering of any.
From Intuition to Strategic Action
For Palestinians, especially Palestinian Christians, Pope Francis’s legacy is a call to believe that even within ancient institutions and hegemonies, cracks can form, light can enter, and solidarity can emerge. Undoubtedly, Pope Francis’s legacy suggests a new path that must be taken forward. His intuition to stop at the Apartheid Wall and engage with the Holy Family parish in Gaza needs to evolve into a concrete stance and strategic action that opposes discrimination, occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. In other words, it is not enough to simply acknowledge the situation; the available resources must be used to dismantle the wall and stop the atrocities in Gaza. If we do not transform Pope Francis’s legacy into robust change, we risk failing to fully realize the vision it embodies.
