A parish administrator has called for action in support of starving people in Gaza. Fr Billy Swan Adm. Wexford Parish told The Irish Catholic, “I felt like someone had to say something.”
In a published statement, Fr Swan said the people in Gaza are “slowly starving to death. They are without basic healthcare, adequate food and water since a total blockade was enforced by Israel as part of its war with Hamas.
“On top of a lack of food, water and medicine, there is a lack of safety with nowhere to go to avoid being seriously injured or killed,” the priest said. “Hundreds of thousands of people are affected. It is a human catastrophe and humanitarian disaster unfolding before our eyes.”
Looking at images of starving people in Gaza, Fr Swan started to “ask myself ‘what can we do?’ I refuse to accept that the answer to this question is ‘nothing’.” He said that doing nothing is not an option for the Church, or a Christian person.
“There are two possible responses that we can make,” he said. “The first is to unite in a scream to Heaven that the treatment of these people and our indifference towards them is ‘WRONG!’ Have we lost our ability to weep for a starving people?”
The second possible response, according to Fr Swan is “to be more convinced why the treatment of these people is so horrifically wrong. These people are human beings. They have needs. They have families. They have rights that are being shamefully ignored… For Christians, these are our brothers and sisters… if we haven’t lost sleep thinking of them then we ought to.”
Referencing the Sunday’s Gospel for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, which talks about the commandment to love one another, Fr Swan asked: “Do the starving people of Palestine see this love from the Christian West right now? Or do they feel abandoned and forgotten to such an extent that faith in Christ for them seems like a cruel joke?”
