• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., and Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego are pictured in a combination photo. The two prelates released a Jan. 17, 2024, statement condemning Hamas and calling for an "immediate and total" halt to military action in the Gaza Strip. (OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz and David Maung)

Two U.S. prelates call for ‘immediate and total’ ceasefire in Gaza Strip

January 17, 2024
By Gina Christian
OSV News
Filed Under: Conflict in the Middle East, Feature, News, World News

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Two U.S. prelates are urging an “immediate and total” ceasefire in the war that has convulsed the Gaza Strip for more than 100 days, while condemning Hamas and urging the release of Israeli hostages taken by the Palestinian militants.

In a Jan. 17 joint statement, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., said the “tens of thousands” of deaths resulting from the Israel-Hamas war and the risk of wider escalation “calls us as Americans to press for a national policy which is focused unswervingly” on ending the conflict.

The war itself was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack — coinciding with a Sabbath and Jewish holiday — on some 22 locations in Israel. Hamas members gunned down hundreds of civilians and took 253 hostages, according to Israel, including infants, the elderly and people with disabilities. Of those, 105 were later released by Hamas during a six-day ceasefire in November. The Israeli military reported that 27 hostages have been killed since the Oct. 7 attack, the worst in the modern state of Israel’s history.

Israeli military vehicles move out of the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel Jan. 15, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. (OSV News photo/Amir Cohen, Reuters)

Some 1,200 people in Israel, including at least 30 U.S. citizens, were killed by Hamas’ attacks.

A New York Times investigation published Dec. 28 found at least seven locations along the Hamas attack front where Israeli women and girls had been sexually assaulted and mutilated Oct. 7.

Israel declared war on Hamas Oct. 8, placing Gaza under siege and pounding the region with airstrikes as Hamas returned fire. Since then, more than 24,000 people, the vast majority being Palestinian women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian officials.

The ensuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has left the Middle East “on the verge of the abyss,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

“The massacre of … innocent Israelis, including children, and the abhorrent victimization of women on Oct. 7 stands as a shocking attack by Hamas upon the most basic principles of human dignity,” Cardinal McElroy and Archbishop Wester said in their statement. “It absolutely delegitimates any future role for Hamas in the Middle East and underscores the right of Israel to bring to justice all those who carried out this outrage.

“Moreover, the piercing moral claim of releasing the hostages should be a priority for the whole international community,” they said.

The siege of densely populated Gaza, which “has lasted more than one hundred days,” has claimed the lives of “more than one percent of the entire population of Gaza,” they said, adding that “proportionately for the United States, this would represent more than 3.5 million lives.”

Much of the remaining population has been rendered homeless, they said, since “the infrastructure, housing and commerce of Gaza has been systematically destroyed by Israeli attacks.”

“A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza before the eyes of the world,” the prelates said. “In such a conflict, continuing such warfare is neither just nor tolerable.”

They also pointed to the “tremendous risk that the present war will produce major conflict in Lebanon, increase violence in the West Bank, and cause outbreaks throughout the Middle East.”

Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militant and political group designated by the U.S. and more than 60 other nations as a terrorist organization, have exchanged cross-border fire almost daily since the Oct. 7 attack. On Jan. 8, Hezbollah confirmed one of its senior commanders had been killed, allegedly by Israeli forces.

In addition, Houthi militants in Yemen have been attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea as a sign of solidarity with Hamas. Although claiming to target ships linked to Israel, the group has damaged vessels from a number of countries, prompting retaliatory strikes by a U.S. and U.K.-led coalition.

“It is for these reasons that Pope Francis has called repeatedly in these days for an end to military action in the Holy Land,” Cardinal McElroy and Archbishop Wester said in their statement, adding, “Only such a cease fire can end the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, stop the growing risk of expanded warfare in the Middle East and maximize the chance of returning the hostages to their families alive.”

They said it is critical for those in the U.S. “to support this call for an immediate ceasefire, and to press for our government to make it the centerpiece of its foreign policy in the Middle East at this pivotal moment.

“Our country has a powerful voice on these issues,” they said. “Let it echo Pope Francis’s call amidst suffering on all sides ‘No to weapons, yes to peace.’ For this will be the only true pathway for justice in the land that so deeply reflects the presence of God.”

Read More Crisis in Israel

IDF says Gaza Holy Family Parish hit was errant mortar round that veered off course

Peace by force is a ‘troubling’ idea, Iran cardinal says

U.S. to withdraw, again, from UNESCO over Palestine and UN development goals

Christ is not absent from Gaza, but crucified in the wounded, patriarchs say after visit

Syrian Christian leaders say Islamist government can’t protect them or Druze

Patriarch’s visit hailed ‘a miracle,’ while parishioners in Gaza feel horror, desperation

Copyright © 2024 OSV News

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Gina Christian

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Prince of Peace merges with St. Francis de Sales in Harford County

  • Detroit archbishop fires theologians Ralph Martin, Eduardo Echeverría from seminary

  • Archdiocese of Baltimore offers resources for parishes to assist migrants

  • Construction underway on new north addition to St. Joseph’s Nursing Home 

  • A butterfly lands on a flowering bush with purple blossoms A Miracle for a Baby in Rhode Island (and for all of us)

| Latest Local News |

Radio Interview: The true story of ‘Xavier Rynne’

Archdiocese of Baltimore offers resources for parishes to assist migrants

Third annual gun buyback scheduled for Aug. 9

Driver arrested after crashing into entrance of Esperanza Center

Construction underway on new north addition to St. Joseph’s Nursing Home 

| Latest World News |

Massacre ‘of faithful in the house of God’ in Congolese Catholic church leaves 43 dead

Pope welcomes young people to Rome for jubilee, thanks media for promoting truth

Cardinal Tomasi: Religious communities can play key roles in nuclear disarmament

Warsaw archbishop ‘devastated, crushed’ by priest’s arrest in brutal murder of homeless man

Jubilee of Youth chance to celebrate hope, fraternity in world at war, panel says

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Radio Interview: The true story of ‘Xavier Rynne’
  • Massacre ‘of faithful in the house of God’ in Congolese Catholic church leaves 43 dead
  • Pope welcomes young people to Rome for jubilee, thanks media for promoting truth
  • Cardinal Tomasi: Religious communities can play key roles in nuclear disarmament
  • Warsaw archbishop ‘devastated, crushed’ by priest’s arrest in brutal murder of homeless man
  • Jubilee of Youth chance to celebrate hope, fraternity in world at war, panel says
  • New York archdiocese sees hundreds of responses to ‘Called By Name’ program
  • Can’t afford a Catholic college? Think again. Many offer full tuition options
  • Detroit archbishop fires theologians Ralph Martin, Eduardo Echeverría from seminary

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en