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Tag: Pope Leo

  • Madonna calls on Pope Leo to visit Gaza

    Madonna calls on Pope Leo to visit Gaza

    Pop icon Madonna has made an appeal to Pope Leo XIV, urging him to visit the blockaded Gaza Strip amid a starvation crisis that has sparked international outrage.

    “You are the only one of us that cannot be denied entry,” the U.S. singer wrote on social media platform X late on Monday.

    “We need the humanitarian gates to be fully opened to save these innocent children.

    “There is no more time,” she added.

    Marking the 25th birthday of her son Rocco Ritchie on Monday, Madonna also announced plans to donate to humanitarian organisations working in Gaza.

    “I feel the best gift I can give to him as a Mother is to ask everyone to do what they can to help save the innocent children caught in the crossfire in Gaza,” she wrote.

    A United Nations (UN) agency said late last week that “acute malnutrition among children in Gaza has reached the highest levels.”

    In July alone, nearly 12,000 children lower than five in age were identified as acutely malnourished, with another 2,500 found to suffer from severe acute malnutrition.

    According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this is the most life-threatening form.

    Israel controls access roads to Gaza and has sealed off the coastal area.

    Read Also: Pope Leo renews call for ceasefire after Israeli attack on Gaza church

    Very little aid got into Gaza from March through May, when Israel began allowing in deliveries using a controversial private system that bypasses traditional UN agencies.

    Under pressure from allies, Israel recently began permitting larger convoys into the territory, as aid airdrops take place overhead.

    On Sunday, Irish rock band U2 issued a stinging critique of the Israeli government’s actions.

    “We know Hamas are using starvation as a weapon in the war, but now so too is Israel and I feel revulsion for the moral failure,” frontman Bono wrote.

    (dpa/NAN)

  • Pope Leo renews call for ceasefire after Israeli attack on Gaza church

    Pope Leo renews call for ceasefire after Israeli attack on Gaza church

    • Starvation massacres reveal brutal genocidal pattern, says Euro-Med

    Pope Leo XIV renewed his call yesterday for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, asking the international community to respect international laws and the obligation to protect civilians.

    “I once again call for an immediate end to the barbarity of this war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” the pontiff said at the end of his yesterday Angelus prayer from his summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo.

    Leo also expressed his “deep sorrow” for the Israeli attack on the only Catholic Church in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, which killed three people and wounded 10 others, including the parish priest.

    “I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations,” the pope added.

    The shelling of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza also damaged the church compound, where hundreds of Palestinians have been sheltering from the Israel-Hamas war, now in its 21st month. Israel expressed regret over what it described as an accident and said it was investigating.

    “We need to dialogue and abandon weapons,” the pope said earlier yesterday, after presiding over Mass at the nearby Cathedral of Albano.

    Read Also: Pope Leo receives US VP Vance, Rubio at Vatican

    “The world no longer tolerates war,” Leo told reporters waiting for him outside the cathedral.

    Asked about his phone conversation on Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Leo said, “We insisted on the need to protect the sacred places of all religions.”

    The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med) yesterday said that the Israeli occupation forces committed one of the most horrific massacres against starving civilians waiting for aid in the northern Gaza Strip, firing directly at them without posing any threat, killing 67 people and wounding dozens.

    It indicated in a statement yesterday that it had documented Israeli occupation soldiers opening fire on civilians as they approached an aid distribution point, in a deliberate killing that cannot be justified by any military consideration.

    It noted that this reflects an unprecedented level of brutality within the genocidal crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza.

    Euro-Med explained that these developments, which coincide with the peak of starvation in the Gaza Strip, with documented deaths due to malnutrition and dozens being hospitalised due to exhaustion and food shortages, confirm that the Israeli occupation is using aid and its distribution points as death traps to deliberately lure starving crowds into them, as part of an integrated system of deliberate killing, systematic deprivation, and collective humiliation, in an unprecedented violation of international law.

  • Pope Leo receives US VP Vance, Rubio at Vatican

    Pope Leo receives US VP Vance, Rubio at Vatican

    Pope Leo XIV met with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Vatican on Monday, just a day after his inaugural Mass as the newly elected leader of the Catholic Church.

    The Vatican released images showing Vance and Rubio sharing a warm exchange with the Chicago-born pontiff, who was elected on May 8 to lead the Church’s 1.4 billion members worldwide.

    Following the meeting with the pope, Vice President Vance also held talks with Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States.

    The Vatican said in a statement: “During the cordial talks held at the Secretariat of State, satisfaction at the good bilateral relations was reiterated, and the collaboration between Church and State was discussed, as well as some matters of special relevance to ecclesial life and religious freedom.

    Read Also: Pope Leo XIV vows to work for global unity, peace at inauguration

    “Finally, there was an exchange of views on some current international issues, calling for respect for humanitarian law and international law in areas of conflict and for a negotiated solution between the parties involved.”