On Tuesday, approximately 150 priests, friars, and nuns, plus a bishop, marched to the Vatican in peaceful protest against what they call a genocide in Gaza. They also marched to the Palestinian and Lebanese embassies, and also to the Rome headquarters of Leonardo SpA, an Italian defense manufacturer which provides weapons and remote technical support to the Israeli military.
They carried a banner featuring 300 names of children that have died in Gaza and Lebanon.
These clergy members are part of a broader Priests Against Genocide network of over 2,500 members worldwide that was launched in August of 2025.
Last month, ten Catholic clergy members from Africa, including Cardinal Stephen Brislin, were part of an official statement issued by Priests Against Genocide.
“We believe that the policies and actions of the Government of Israel in Gaza constitute genocide. Having learned to recognise dehumanisation in our own history, we cannot refuse to recognise it in other people,” the statement read.
The African clergy added that they “cannot condemn apartheid in our history and refuse to recognise these patterns inflicted upon Palestinians.”
“A particularly horrifying feature of this genocide is that, for the overwhelming majority of Gaza’s population, there has been no reliable route to safe refuge — only repeated displacement within a closed territory, from one unsafe place to another.”
“To order people to flee when there is no safe place to flee to is not protection.”
About 150 Catholic priests, friars, nuns, and a bishop marched through the streets of Rome, calling for an end to what they described as a genocide. Organizers from the "Priests Against Genocide Network" led the march to the Vatican, carrying a banner with the names of 300… pic.twitter.com/qyYwXBaRt7
— EWTN News Nightly (@EWTNNewsNightly) September 24, 2026
The clergy also clarified that their statement was a criticism of the government of Israel, not Jewish people. “We reject antisemitism and Islamophobia alike,” they said.
The statement noted the “grave crimes” committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023 but emphasized that “[t]heir crimes do not diminish Israel’s obligations under international law, nor justify genocide or collective punishment. We will not answer one dehumanisation with another.”
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 30% of the deaths in Gaza since October 7, 2023 have been children. Gaza holds the grim record of the highest concentration of amputees in the world, including for children.
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