Pizzaballa: 'In Gaza we have a duty to promise a future'

Gaza needs to be totally rebuilt, not only in infrastructure, but above all we need to rebuild the sense of community, of belonging, of life, of social life. Everything needs to be rebuilt. But it is not a future that we can deny him: we need to guarantee it to him and promise to do everything to make it possible. October 7 was, and still is, a very serious drama: it was a watershed in the life of Israel, but also in the nation and among the Palestinians.

This is the message that Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, patriarch of Jerusalem, entrusted to the academic community of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in human rights, in a ceremony attended, among others, by the Minister of University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini.

The cardinal held a lectio magistralis entitled 'The humanity of the other. Dignity and rights in times of war' and highlighted how "the humanity of others does not represent a limit to our freedom or our security, on the contrary, it is a condition of our own humanity and when we forget this truth, we not only hurt others, we also compromise our future".

Addressing the students and professors of Sant'Anna, he then said: "I leave you with this single instruction: to make one's own expertise a tool to broaden the space of human dignity, because societies change when someone makes what seemed impossible possible and when someone decides to see a person where others only see an enemy, a problem or a number".

This is why, for Pizzaballa, "words have weight": "They reach people, they form an opinion, they orient the way of reading what happens. In the Holy Land, both necessary words such as security and justice remained separate for a long time, linked to different experiences. Used out of their context, they made comparison difficult. Dehumanization often begins precisely from the destruction of this possibility. When only a contemptuous definition remains of the other, his face disappears."

The cardinal observed that "living together requires rules and institutions capable of safeguarding people's freedom: the quality of these institutions is also measured by the possibility of turning to them regardless of one's beliefs". This is the most complicated exercise, recognizing the other and talking to each other rather than demonizing them: "Violent language - concluded Pizzaballa - participates in the conflict: it prepares attitudes, makes behaviors acceptable, accustoms us to thinking that some lives deserve less attention. A responsible public word must be able to name injustices, acts of violence and abuse, and recognize those who respond: injustices must be called by name, even when this disturbs our belonging or our interests".