GNIEZNO, Poland (OSV News) -- As the Israel-Hamas war nears its third year with no end in sight, a Lebanese bishop said that peace is possible only with the power of forgiveness.
Carrying a personal message of an impossible mercy following the killing of his own parents, Lebanese Bishop Mounir Khairallah of Batrun visited Poland Sept. 11-14 to participate in the Council of Gniezno peace summit.
As he left, Israel started a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip Sept. 16, leaving thousands of Palestinians fleeing Gaza City.
"Hope is struggling to materialize" in the region, said Bishop Khairallah just weeks before Oct. 7 -- marking a second anniversary of the attack of Hamas militants on southern Israeli communities after which Israel launched a deadly war with Hamas.
Bishop Khairallah underlined that peace is a "desire that we all carry together," but in his region there is still "the power of weapons, of violence, of war, the power of certain leaders who in no way want to talk about peace -- a just and lasting peace for all the peoples and all our countries in the Middle East." He added that peace is precisely what the people of the region want.
It's "so desired by all our peoples, by the Lebanese, by the Palestinians, by the Israelis," Bishop Khairallah told OSV News during a conversation in Gniezno Sept. 12.
On Sept. 21, the U.K., Australia and Canada formally recognized a Palestinian state, followed by France a day later, prompting an angry response from Israel.
Meanwhile, thousands of Israelis joined the families of hostages still being held in Gaza to protest in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Sept. 21, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of not doing enough to negotiate the release of those still being held captive by Hamas.
"As a church, we are committed not only to believing and hoping for peace, but also we have the will to go all the way to make peace a reality," Bishop Khairallah said, but for this a "step outside" political "narrow interests" is needed, he said.
"Let them step outside this logic and finally understand that their people only want peace. Absolutely," the bishop said. "Our people no longer want war, no longer want hatred and revenge. We have had enough."
Bishop Khairallah, for 67 years -- since he was 5 -- has carried a personal testimony of peace and reconciliation between rival Middle Eastern countries.
When he was 5, in 1958, his parents -- both farmers -- invited a Muslim Syrian man to help at their farm.
"Lebanon is a country of hospitality and conviviality. ... We welcomed him into our home to help our dad work the land," the bishop told OSV News.
"The night of September 12 to 13, the eve of the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, which is for us in the East, a very big celebration," the Syrian man "ended up murdering them both," Bishop Khairallah told OSV News in a moving testimony of his parents' death.
Little Mounir was the oldest of five children -- the youngest was 1 year old at the time. An aunt took them in after the tragedy -- she was a cloistered nun in the Lebanese Maronite order, whose monastery was not far from the children's house.
"She came to take us home and to her church, and she invited us to kneel," the bishop recalled.
She said, "Raise your arms, we're going to pray together," Bishop Khairallah recalled. "The surprise was: 'We're not going to pray for your parents because they are martyrs. They are surely in the kingdom of God. But we are going to pray for the one who murdered them,'" the bishop said.
"We prayed, and when we finished the prayer, before leaving, she gave us a recommendation, a commandment that wasn't hers, but Christ's. She told us, 'Now, with your childlike innocence, you have prayed with me, you have forgiven. I recommend that you continue to pray for this man, to forgive and to live your lives.'"
Bishop Khairallah told OSV News that "once you are young, you are grown up to continue to forgive, to know that this is the price to pay and to live to truly be children of your father in heaven. Jesus told us not only to love, but also to love those who don't love you -- what a merit -- love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you ... And we have truly kept this recommendation, this advice, throughout our lives, all four of us."
He said the experience of "an inner peace" has "helped us greatly to continue our lives. And we never felt the lack of our parents, because God never abandoned us and our Mother in Heaven, Mary Our Lady never abandoned us and they blessed our family, my brothers, their children.
"I believe providence has always been our protector. As if living this inner peace with forgiveness opened our horizons, not only to dialogue, not only to respect others, but also to go deep."
Nineteen years after the murder of his parents, now-Bishop Khairallah was ordained a priest, choosing Sept. 13 as the date for his ordination: It was the anniversary of the death of his parents and the eve of the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
"I naturally chose this date for the anniversary of my parents' martyrdom," he said, but there was also another reason: "above all to remember ... to remind everyone, that the sign of the times is a sign of God's will. God never wants anyone to die. But for us, it was a sign."
The family is reminded, he added, "that the grain of wheat that falls to the earth and dies bears fruit."
His own forgiveness and reconciliation in the region was tested In late 1970s, when then-Father Khairallah was ministering to Lebanese youth, bitter after the start of civil war in 1975.
The war was ignited with the April 13 Phalangist militia attack on a bus in Ain el-Remmaneh, Beirut, killing Palestinians and Lebanese, in retaliation for a previous attack on their leader, Pierre Gemayel -- an event that sent Lebanon into 15 years of civil war, crumbling the country's economy and leading to a mass exodus of its people.
The Lebanese youth, the bishop said, "wanted revenge against the Palestinians, against all our enemies who came to fight against us in Lebanon. And I remember, during Holy Week in 1978, I was in a large mountain parish, and after Mass, we had large gatherings and Bible vigils where we shared the Word of God together."
Then-Father Khairallah was supposed to speak about the sacrament of reconciliation and forgiveness, but the youth wouldn't get the message from his lectures of theology, so he decided to tell his own story.
A young man afterward asked him what the priest would do if the killer "comes and kneels in the confessional in front of you and asks for your forgiveness."
Bishop Khairallah said it was a "cold shower" for him.
"I understood that I myself had forgiven from afar. I had never seen that guy again."
At that moment, he relived his forgiveness. "I believe (that) it is the mission that we Christians carry on this earth of Christ who forgave on the cross. We always want to be witnesses of Christ -- in love, in charity, but also in forgiveness. Let's do it together," he said.
He said in the Middle East today peace cannot be achieved "through violence, through force, through weapons, and through wars."
He said that, especially with Palestinians and Israelis -- the logic needs to start with: "together we can form a state" - followed by "we can build peace together."
"As Christians, as a church, but also as Lebanese, all together, our message is that despite everything, living together is always possible."