The full names and ages of 12,227 children, killed in Israel and Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, were read out loud in a ceremony yesterday conducted by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi. It was done at an historic site, at the ruin of the church of Casaglia, in Monte Sole di Marzabotto, Italy. It was there that the German Nazis and Italian Fascists conducted the worst massacre of civilians in Italy during World War II.
Yesterday, in the adjoining park, the prayer marathon included 16 Israeli and 12,211 Palestinian children. Cardinal Zuppi said: “To remember, to pay attention, from this place that is a place of suffering and that has always, intentionally, been a place of remembrance of all the victims.” He expressed the hope that “by stopping at the suffering of innocent children, something new and different can be started again.”
