“THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL TRAMPLED IN GAZA BY GENOCIDE TO OUST THE PALESTINIANS”. Exclusive interview with the Archbishop of Saint Pius, Msgr. Franco Moscone
In the cover image the Archbishop of Manfredonia, Monsignor Franco Moscone on a recent visit to the Diocese of Alba where he is originally from (detail photo Francesco Amillotta) and one of the thousands of mutilated children from Gaza (source Al Jazeera)
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Haaretz Summary on September, 4, 2025 (link in the sources)
- The Gaza Health Ministry said 84 people were killed and 338 wounded in Israel over the past day.
- Palestinian-American businessman Bishara Bahbah said he had given Hamas a U.S. proposal to end the war in Gaza, in exchange for the release of all hostages, before Trump’s urge to “IMMEDIATELY” return 20 hostages.
- Hostage families said both Israel and Hamas have voiced desire to reach a hostage deal, and called on all parties to begin negotiations immediately.
- The IDF says that a missile launched from Yemen early Thursday morning fell outside of Israeli territory and that sirens were not sounded.
- Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a threat to retaliate against the three missiles launched by Yemen’s Houthis group on Wednesday and Thursday.
- Al Jazeera reported that the Israel Defense Forces ordered a two-hour notice ahead of the evacuation of a neighborhood east of Tulkarm in the West Bank.
- Lebanese media outlets reported a wave of Israeli air force strikes overnight into Thursday in the country’s south, which were condemned by Lebanon’s prime minister.
- A 25-year-old resident of an Israeli Arab town was indicted for supporting the Islamic State, according to the Shin Bet security service.
- Reserves IDF top official Yoav Mordechai agreed to a police request to extend his temporary suspension from the military’s captives division as Qatargate investigations continue
From the war in Gaza to Smotrich’s plan: the nails in the coffin of the two states
by Piero Angelo De Ruvo
All links to previous Gospa News articles were added later by the editorial staff
he last two events mark a new critical point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on the one hand, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has threatened the destruction of Gaza City if Hamas does not accept Israeli conditions for an end to the conflict, despite the Palestinian group had accepted a ceasefire proposal mediated by Egypt and Qatar. The choice was condemned by 21 countries, including Italy.
In this context, the words and reflections that Monsignor Franco Moscone, Archbishop of Manfredonia and the Sanctuary of San Pio da Pietrelcina, gave to Gospa News in an exclusive interview conducted in recent days at the Diocese take on the value of an inescapable evangelical warning
Minister Smotrich has announced a plan to build hundreds of thousands of settlements in the West Bank, with the aim of splitting it in two and, as he himself said, “putting nails in the coffin” of the two-state solution, while the West continues to proclaim its support for that solution, Israel carries out policies that make it impractical, without suffering concrete sanctions other than an arms export embargo agreed by a few Hague Group countries.
A UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IFSPC) report denounces the presence of a famine “entirely caused by Israel” in Gaza City and nearby areas, with the risk of it spreading to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis.
According to the UN, 132,000 children under five are in grave danger and hunger would be used as a “weapon of war”, taking the form of a war crime. Israel rejects the accusations, calling them false and based on data provided by Hamas.
The words of Monsignor Franco Moscone against the violence and hypocrisy of the West
Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent proclamation.
“we will take the entire Strip even if Hamas accepts a truce agreement”.
It is not just a political message, but a manifesto of total war. A declaration that reveals the most brutal face of a project that has been bloodied in Gaza for months, words that sound like the signing of a death sentence not only for the entire. Palestinian people, but for the entire international law. It is no longer the shadow of a military conflict, but the brazen admission of a political project of annihilation of a people, of ethnic cleansing.
In this scenario, the voice of the Church rises as the last bastion of truth and conscience. Monsignor Franco Moscone, archbishop of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo, does not mince words in the interview he gave us after shouting the same concepts from the squares:
«We can’t even talk about war anymore. Here we are dealing with violent, continuous, methodical aggression against an entire population, the correct term is genocide».
War is never an alibi, but the choice of powers that fuel the arms trade and trample on the sacredness of life. A clear, unequivocal definition, which lays bare the hypocrisy of those who continue to talk about “conflict” or “defence”, when faced with the systematic destruction of a defenseless people.
«A genocide», the heart of the Gospel trampled upon
Mons. Moscone states without hesitation:
«The aim is obvious, it is to eliminate an entire population or at least expel them from their land».
It is not, therefore, a question of military excesses or calculation errors: the project is clear and is there for all to see, and for this very reason, adds the bishop, the Church cannot afford to remain neutral.
«Peace is the very heart of the Gospel. The first words of the risen Jesus to the apostles are: “Peace be with you, peace is for you, become peacemakers in the midst of the world”. The Church is fully aware that its vocation is to be an instrument of peace for the world and that by bringing peace it evangelizes».
A call that burns, because it reveals the abysmal distance between the evangelical message and the attitude of so many governments and even many Christian consciences, who are silent in the face of the massacre, accomplices and suppliers of weapons that has already mowed down not numbers but faces, tortured bodies and broken dreams under the rubble.
Children sacrificed and indignation denied
The figures speak for themselves: over 50,000 civilians whose images show thousands of Palestinian children massacred.
«For every person who has the slightest feeling of humanity and who allows himself to be questioned, one cannot remain silent and cannot help but get excited to the point of indignation. Faced with these images on my part but I believe on the part of the majority of people, there is a force of indignation, repugnance and condemnation», says Mgr. Moscone.
«I am convinced that it cannot even be called war, in the face of what is happening, because war would be opposed armies, real armies with real strategies. Here we are dealing with a continuous and methodical violent aggression against an entire population against an entire nation, without taking into account the age of the type of people – the situation we are experiencing».
These words are striking forcefully, because they reveal the absurdity of international silence: how can one remain silent in the face of a genocide of children. And how can those very governments that proclaim to defend life and human rights remain silent?
To Palestinian mothers, the archbishop does not bring a superficial message of consolation. On the contrary, it recognizes the lesson that they themselves deliver to the world: «This population is giving us an example of dignity and cohesion. They are saying that that is their land all along and there is no reason why they should be driven out of it».
A message of resistance that recalls the tragedies of the twentieth century.
«It is the same dignity that Jews experienced in Nazi concentration camps, but also the Soviet gulags themselves. When humanity decides to turn away, the horror repeats».
A phrase that strikes at the heart: the very people who experienced extermination now inflict the same dehumanization on others. Monsignor Moscone clearly denounces it: war lives only on what nourishes it, and what nourishes it today are the multinational arms companies, true masters of globalization. This is the political and moral blasphemy of our time: proclaiming the defense of life, of rights, of democracy, while the budgets of the producers of death are fattening.
And while the new Pope Leo XIV immediately placed peace as an absolute priority, his voice risks remaining isolated in a deafening chorus of geopolitical and financial interests. It is not just an omission: it is a historic fault that will someday weigh like a boulder on the conscience of the West.
The weapons and Christian hypocrisy of the West
Then there is an even more radical complaint by the Archbishop of Manfredonia:
«The only way to stop wars is not to fuel them. And the first tool that fuels them is the arms trade. Armaments multinationals are today the true power that dominates the world».
A phrase that nails the responsibilities of the United States, Europe and all the governments that continue to fill the Middle East with bombs and missiles, and then cry crocodile tears over the exterminated civilians.
Mons. Moscone highlights the contradiction that tears our time: «There is no future with war, there is only a regression. There is no progress, there is no fraternity. Without stopping wars we will never be able to face other global challenges, from climate to migration».
The Truth Kills Those who Tell it: Massacre of Journalists
Finally, the archbishop devotes a thought to those who pay with their lives for the courage of truth: journalists. In Gaza, 228 were killed, a frightening figure.
«Their sacrifice– he says –is a civil martyrdom, a secular martyrdom. They gave their lives for the freedom of all. Single thinking is not freedom. Freedom needs dialectics, comparison, different voices».
A warning that also concerns us: while the mainstream media covers up or distorts reality, those who dare to tell the truth are persecuted, delegitimized, silenced. It is proof that freedom of thought is now under attack even in the West, the same West that has made the word liberté one of its flags.
Independent journalists and observers are threatened, delegitimized, silenced.
it is just one of many names under attack for denouncing the systematic violation of Palestinian rights. Anyone who dares to tell the horror immediately becomes “anti-Semitic”, “propagandist”, “terrorist”.It is the oldest method: criminalizing the truth to protect the lie.
Yet, as Archbishop Moscone points out, “freedom of speech is an integral part of the Christian mission: without truth, there is no justice. And without justice, there will never be peace”.
Either you choose peace, or you choose genocide
Everything that is happening is proof that we are not only faced with a regional conflict, but with a global control of the values that the West claims to embody. Netanyahu’s attack is not only against Gaza: it is against the conscience of the world, it is a direct challenge to truth, peace and even faith. In this darkness, the voice of the Church –fragile but necessary – remains the only light that denounces without compromise: life is sacred, and whoever tramples on it in the name of power digs his own condemnation into history.
From the words of the archbishop emerges an appeal that we can no longer ignore, there is no room for ambiguity, there are no longer gray areas, every bomb dropped, every mutilated child, every murdered journalist, is a shame that cries out in pain. Either you choose peace, or you choose to be complicit in genocide.
The Palestinian people, reduced to hunger and rubble, continue to teach the world a lesson: resist with dignity. It is now up to us to decide whether to be on the side of life or whether to continue to fuel the death machine.
The time of silence is over.
Piero Angelo De Ruvo
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Italian Army NCO on leave.. Former military trade unionist
Member of the board of directors of the Constitutio Italia association
Every link to previous Gospa News articles was added retrospectively by the editorial staff
“Biography Archbishop Franco Moscone”.
He attended the vocational college of Cherasco with the Somask fathers and in 1977 made his temporary profession. The following year he made his perpetual profession in the Somask order. He studied at the Pontifical University of Sant’Anselmo in Rome and also graduated in literature and philosophy in Turin.
He was ordained deacon in 1983 and priest in 1984. From 1995 to 1999 he was in Poland to open and manage a Somask house in Toruń. Upon returning to Italy, he held various positions in the order until becoming general provost in 2008.
On 3 November 2018 Pope Francis appointed him archbishop of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo. He received his episcopal ordination in Alba on 12 January 2019. On 26 January 2019 he took canonical possession of his new archdiocese.
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