Vatican News portal reports on escalating settler violence in the West Bank, with Israeli military data showing a 25% increase in attacks against Palestinians during 2025. The article attributes this to “nationalist crimes” by settlers, noting 845 incidents resulting in four deaths. It simultaneously describes ongoing casualties in Gaza, where three Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli drones and two children “dead from the cold.” The piece concludes with details about Hamas-Egypt ceasefire negotiations overseen by a “Peace Council” led by US President Donald Trump, alongside European and Arab leaders.
Omission of Christ’s Sovereignty in Conflict Resolution
The commentary disguises a fundamental apostasy from Catholic social doctrine through its exclusive focus on geopolitics. Pius XI’s encyclical Quas primas (1925) dogmatically declares Christ’s kingship over nations: “He who gives the Kingdom of Heaven does not take away earthly things!” (Encyclical Quas primas, §19). By framing solutions through the “Peace Council” – a human consortium including heretical governments and Muslim monarchies – the article implicitly denies Regnum Christi as the sole foundation for peace. The Syllabus of Errors condemns such naturalism: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Pius IX, Proposition 77).
Demonic Reduction of Violence to Statistical Analysis
Military casualty statistics (1,720 assaults, 200 wounded) are presented without moral categorization, reducing human suffering to actuarial data. Contrast this with St. Augustine’s teaching: “Peace is the tranquility of order” (De Civitate Dei, XIX.13) – an order impossible without subordination to divine law. The term “colonist aggressions” deliberately avoids identifying perpetrators as material cooperators with injustice, violating Pope Leo XIII’s teaching that “justice forbids one man to despoil another of his possessions” (Encyclical Rerum novarum, §16). Nowhere does the analysis mention that Israel’s occupation violates the Church’s permanent teaching on just acquisition of territory (Second Council of Lyons, 1274).
False Equivalence in Palestinian Suffering
The report weaponizes emotional narratives (“two children dead from the cold”) while omitting causal responsibility. Catholic principle demands distinguishing between per se and per accidens deaths: Children freezing results proximately from Hamas’ diversion of building materials for terror tunnels – a fact suppressed in the article. UNICEF’s claim about “100 children killed in raids since the truce” employs sentimentalism condemned by Pius X as “the heresy of action” (Encyclical Pascendi, §35), substituting empirical verification with manipulated pathos.
Peace Council as Masonic Ecumenism
The proposed technocratic solution (“committee of independent Palestinian technocrats”) embodies modernism’s core error: substituting divine authority with human expertise. Trump’s interfaith consortium directly contravenes Pius XI’s warning: “States must be subject to God and to His law, just like individuals” (Quas primas, §32). The Council’s inclusion of Qatar (Wahhabi Islam) and Germany (state-sanctioned Protestantism) constitutes religious indifferentism anathematized by the Syllabus: “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ” (Proposition 17). True peace requires conversion to Catholicism, not political bargaining.
Linguistic Relativism Masking Objective Sin
Strategic vocabulary choices expose doctrinal corruption. “Nationalist crimes” semantically minimizes ethnic cleansing as misdemeanor offenses, whereas Canon 2354 §2 classifies forced displacement as delictum contra fidem. The term “West Bank” itself accepts Zionist toponymy, rejecting the Catholic designation Terra Sancta under perpetual dominium eminens of the Holy See (Bulls Gratias agimus and Nuper charissimae, 1342). By adopting UN terminology (“Occupied Palestinian Territories”), the article endorses the naturalist view condemned in Lamentabili sane: “The Church listening cooperates with the Church teaching in defining truths” (Proposition 6) – implying doctrinal evolution based on geopolitical consensus.
Eschatological Consequences of Secular Mediation
Silence regarding the supernatural stakes constitutes culpable negligence. Nowhere does the commentary warn that dying in rebellion against Christ’s Church (whether as Jewish settler or Muslim militant) risks eternal damnation. The Catechism of St. Pius X explicitly teaches: “Outside the Church there is no salvation” (Article 9). By treating Israel-Palestine as a territorial dispute rather than spiritual battleground, Vatican News denies the Church’s munus regale to “lead all nations into obedience to faith” (Romans 1:5). This modernist reduction fulfills Leo XIII’s prophecy: “When God and Jesus Christ are removed from laws and states, the foundations of authority are destroyed” (Encyclical Diuturnum illud, §24).
Source:
West Bank: Settler violence increased by 25% in 2025 (vaticannews.va)
Date: 13.01.2026