Rome – On Sunday, July 27, 2025, at 10 PM, church bells across Italy may break the silence of the night—not to announce celebration, but to awaken consciences. The initiative, titled “Let’s Desert the Silence”, is promoted by Pax Christi as a public sign of solidarity with the people of Gaza, devastated by months of bombings and hunger.
The proposal is simple yet deeply symbolic: to let the bells ring out as a cry that shatters indifference, a liturgical and civic gesture combined. In a time when the horror of war risks becoming background noise—even in Church settings—choosing not to remain silent becomes a prophetic act. In Gaza, children, women and men continue to die, innocent victims of a brutal violence that shows no signs of stopping. Not only bombs fall—hunger, thirst, and lack of medical care strike too. And, as so often, the world watches, comments, but rarely acts.
In Italy, there are also certain Fogli—newspapers where ideologues posing as Vatican experts draft moral rankings between “first-class wars” and “second-class wars.” But war is always war, wherever it happens, and it always deserves condemnation: in Ukraine, Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes Region, Myanmar, the Western Balkans, the South Caucasus, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. There are no just or irrelevant wars, no important or neglectable ones. The Church condemns all wars and works tirelessly so that every conflict may come to an end.
It is into this void that the Church must let its voice be heard. Not to take political sides—war should appall all political forces—but to defend life and to proclaim, as Leo XIV has repeatedly said, that war is always a defeat. This call from Pax Christi is not just a liturgical invitation—it is an ecclesial challenge: can we continue to pray for peace without acting in its name?
Tonight, the bells will not be a tired ritual, but a call to conscience: to the ecclesial conscience, too often silent so as not to disturb, and to the public conscience, quick to grow used to horror. To “desert the silence” means to reject indifference, which is never neutral, but often complicit. It means acknowledging that Gaza, like Ukraine, like every war-torn corner of the world, cannot be forgotten just because it’s far away.
So let it not be just one evening, not just one sound. Let every Eucharist be an act of intercession for peace, an offering of words and gestures that resist the logic of violence. Because peace doesn’t come on its own—it must be built. Through prayer, through action, through courage. In the stillness of the night, a single bell may speak louder than a thousand speeches—if its sound finds an echo in the heart.
d.A.S.
Silere non possum