‘Selective indignation’: Rome’s chief rabbi criticizes Pope Francis over Israel remarks
Speaking at Catholic-Jewish dialogue event, Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni accuses the pope of unfairly focusing on Israel, while ignoring other world conflicts

ROME — Rome’s chief rabbi sharply criticized Pope Francis over the pontiff’s recent ramping up of criticism against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, in an unusually forceful speech during an annual Catholic-Jewish dialogue event.
Francis has unfairly focused his attention on Israel compared to other ongoing world conflicts, including those in Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia, Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, spiritual leader of Rome’s Jewish community since 2001, said Thursday.
“Selective indignation … weakens the pope’s strength,” said Di Segni.
“A pope cannot divide the world into children and stepchildren and must denounce the sufferings of all,” he said. “This is exactly what the Pope does not do.”
Francis, leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian terror group Hamas. Last week, he called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “very serious and shameful.”
A complex ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas emerged on Wednesday, and is scheduled to start on Sunday.
The war in Gaza was sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and massacre in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were seized as hostages as thousands of Hamas-led terrorists rampaged across Israel’s Gaza border communities.

Relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism have improved in recent decades, after centuries of persecution. The event on Thursday, held at a Catholic university, was organized to mark the 36th annual World Day of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue.
One of the organizers, Rev. Marco Gnavi, a Catholic priest, expressed surprise at Di Segni’s comments.
He said he felt “discomfort” because of the rabbi’s words. “You can’t ask us not to suffer both with you and with others,” said the priest.
Francis has consistently called for peace since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, and has met frequently with the family members of those taken hostage and repeatedly called for their release.
However, a letter he wrote to Middle Eastern Catholics on the first anniversary of the attack never mentioned Hamas by name or made explicit reference to its atrocities, including the hostages. The letter also quoted passages from the Gospel of John that have historically been used to fuel religious antisemitism.
At the end of November, he went one step further and denounced “the invader’s arrogance” in both “Ukraine” and “Palestine,” breaking with the Holy See’s modern tradition of neutrality.
In a book excerpt published in November, the pontiff said that some international experts had posited that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”
Israel has angrily rejected his remarks, saying that they were disconnected from the context of Israel’s fight against terrorism and amounted to double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people.