The Hamas attack on Israel two years ago “was inhuman and indefensible,” the Vatican secretary of state said, and Israel’s two-year-long war on Gaza has had “disastrous and inhuman consequences.”

As indirect ceasefire talks began in Egypt between Israel and Hamas Oct. 6 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt — aimed at finalizing a ceasefire deal based on a proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump — the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem lauded it as an “important and long-awaited first step.”

Police work is a service for the safety and security of people and institutions, Pope Leo XIV said, but it is also a way for Christians to give witness to their faith.

Pope Leo XIV decried “the rise of antisemitic hatred in the world,” particularly as evidenced by “the terrorist attack in Manchester,” England, Oct. 2, an attack that killed two men.

Sharing the Gospel with one’s neighbor, welcoming migrants who are Christian or setting off to a foreign land to share God’s love through charity and proclamation are concrete expressions of belief that the church is “catholic” and that God wants to save all people, said Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle.