ReadNOW

GAZA CITY — For most people around the world, Pope Francis was a religious leader seen on video or read about in the news. For the congregation of a tiny Roman Catholic church in Gaza, he was the voice on the other end of the phone every night, calling to check on them in wartime.

“He used to call us at 7 p.m. every night. No matter how busy he was, no matter where he was, he always called,” George Anton, spokesperson for the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza, told ReadNOW on Monday, the day of the pope’s death at age 88.

“He would ask us how we were, what did we eat, did we have clean water, was anyone injured?” Anton says. “It was never diplomatic or a matter of obligation. It was the questions a father would ask.”

More than 300 Palestinians have sheltered at the church since the war in Gaza began in October 2023. Another 300 have sheltered at a nearby Greek Orthodox church, where an Israeli airstrike killed 17 people early in the war. Two women at the Holy Family church were shot dead, also in 2023, by what the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem said was an  Israeli military sniper. Israel denied that it targeted civilians.

The Holy Family congregation was often terrified, but the pope during his calls “drove fear from our hearts,” Anton says. “Today we feel like we are orphans.”

In a video released by the Vatican in January of the nightly routine, Pope Francis, head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, called the parish priests in a WhatsApp video call. They greeted each other in Italian while one of the priests urged parishioners to gather around.

Pope Francis asked what they ate that day. The call took place just before a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas — which would end two months later. Aid groups have warned since last year of widespread hunger and possible famine in Gaza. On that day in January, the Rev. Youssef Asaad was delighted to tell him they had chicken wings.

Anton says the pope’s final call came on Saturday, two days before he died.

As was usual, he says, Francis told them he was praying for them and said he needed their prayers.

“He told us not to worry as he would always be there for us,” says Anton. “He was with us until his last breath.”

The Gaza war has raged for one and a half years, sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that killed nearly 1,200 people in Israel. The Israeli response has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians and destroyed the Palestinian enclave. The International Criminal Court is investigating charges of genocide. Israel rejects the allegations.

The war and its unprecedented toll on Palestinian civilians rarely make headlines anymore. But the Gaza parishioners say Pope Francis never let it drop.

“His was the only voice that did not go silent on what is happening here,” says Anton.

Pope Francis appeared at Easter Mass at the Vatican the day before he died, greeting crowds of worshipers and reaching out to children along the route of his vehicle. In an address delivered by his deputy, he called for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.

In the region where Christianity began, the several hundred remaining Christians in Gaza hold tight to their faith. At Gaza City’s St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox church on Palm Sunday last week, families carried palm fronds to commemorate the entry of Jesus to Jerusalem. Some of the women wore brightly colored, knee-length dresses.

Anton says the pope was concerned not just with Palestinian Christians but the entire Palestinian people, often asking during his calls about schools and hospitals in Gaza.

“Pope Francis believed that in Gaza people deserve to live in dignity and independence,” Anton says. “I would call on the whole world and every individual on this earth to see Gaza in the eyes of Pope Francis.”

Jane Arraf reported from Amman, Jordan.