U.S. Bishops Get Memoir of Priest of Gaza’s Only Catholic Church
Fr. Gabriel Romanelli’s The Priest Who Stayed in Gaza Arrives with a Personal Letter from the Priest Himself — a Call to See the Human Face Behind the Headlines From Gaza
By The Vulnerable People Project | Aug. 3, 2026
WEST BANK, Aug. 3, 2026 /Christian Newswire/ — The Vulnerable People Project (VPP) is mailing a copy of The Priest Who Stayed in Gaza: A Witness to Hope in the Ruins — the memoir of Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest of Holy Family Church in Gaza City — the only Catholic church in the Strip — to every Catholic bishop in the United States. Each copy arrives with a personal letter from Fr. Romanelli himself, along with a letter from VPP founder Jason Jones, asking the nation’s Catholic shepherds to read it, to pray, and to recognize the human face behind the headlines from Gaza.
Fr. Romanelli, an Argentine priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, was in Jerusalem on October 7, 2023, and could have remained there in safety. Instead he returned immediately to Holy Family Church in Gaza City and to his parish of roughly 135 souls — a community that would go on to shelter hundreds of displaced families, Christian and Muslim alike, within its walls. For eighteen months, until Holy Saturday 2025, Pope Francis telephoned Fr. Romanelli every day to encourage him; Pope Leo XIV has continued those calls. Even after he was wounded when an explosion struck the church, Fr. Romanelli stayed. Published this year by Sophia Institute Press and written with Guillaume de Dieuleveult, his memoir is deliberately not a work of conflict analysis or politics. It is a pastoral testimony — the record of a shepherd who refused to leave his flock.
“Fr. Gabriel could have stayed safe in Jerusalem, and instead he returned to a war zone to be with his people — and he has never left them,” said Jason Jones, founder of the Vulnerable People Project. “That is the whole of our mission in a single life: presence instead of abandonment, refusing to let persecuted Christians and their neighbors be reduced to numbers in a news report. We are putting this book into the hands of every bishop in America because Fr. Gabriel’s witness is a question addressed to each of them — and to all of us: when the vulnerable are forgotten, will we stay, or will we look away? We wanted the shepherds of the Church in this country to hear that question in the words of the man living the answer.”
The distribution reflects VPP’s core mission of standing with persecuted and vulnerable Christian communities across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Nigeria, Sudan, and India — insisting on presence and accountability where others see only statistics. In his accompanying letter, Jones connects Fr. Romanelli’s decision to remain to the work VPP carries out in the field, and asks each recipient not only to read the memoir but to recognize what their prayers and support help sustain: the continued presence of the Church among people the world has largely forgotten. Fr. Romanelli’s own letter offers the bishops a word directly from Gaza — from the priest who has stayed.
The Priest Who Stayed in Gaza: A Witness to Hope in the Ruins is available from Sophia Institute Press. The Vulnerable People Project encourages all Americans — not only the bishops receiving it — to read Fr. Romanelli’s testimony and to stand with the Christian communities of the Holy Land and beyond.
For more information about the Vulnerable People Project and its mission, please visit SaveWestBankChristians.com.
PRESS CONTACT: Lex Pouliot, [email protected] or 970-342-4418
ABOUT JASON JONES & THE VULNERABLE PEOPLE PROJECT: Jason Jones is a film producer, author, activist, and human rights worker. He is president of Movie to Movement, the Human Rights Education Organization (H.E.R.O.) and founder of the Vulnerable People Project. The Vulnerable People Project advocates for persecuted communities around the world, with a focus on exposing human rights abuses and supporting vulnerable individuals regardless of faith or background.
