At the Vatican switchboard, nuns soothe anxious callers about Pope Francis

News

At the Vatican switchboard, nuns soothe anxious callers about Pope Francis

2025-03-16 00:43 Last Updated At：00:50

VATICAN CITY (AP) — How’s Pope Francis doing? Can you give him my get-well wishes? Can I speak with him directly?

The nuns who operate the Vatican’s switchboard are fielding a growing number of calls with questions like that as the pope remains hospitalized in Rome.

“They feel like children waiting to know about their father,” said Sister Anthony, who runs the operation in a spartan office steps away from St. Peter’s. Basilica. “We tell them to pray for him.”

The Vatican’s central number is public — and the sisters of the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master make sure all who call it get a real person, not the “press 1 for English, 2 for Latin” version of the automation that’s become the norm at major institutions and businesses worldwide.

“It’s the Vatican’s voice — a voice that despite the digitalization of communications, the Vatican wants to preserve as a human voice,” said Mother Micaela, the order’s mother superior.

The Pious Disciples sisters are part of the 100-year-old Pauline orders, which are focused on communications, including landmark Catholic publishing operations around the world. In spring 1970, they were called to operate the Vatican switchboard and instructed by the then-mother superior to be “a voice that does good because through the phone wire it communicates Christ himself.”

Today, often with headsets over their veils, the sisters cover the phones for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, in front of large monitors that show the incoming call's country of origin. Gendarmes, the Vatican’s police, take the night shift.

About a dozen sisters hailing from Italy, the Philippines, Poland and elsewhere take calls from around the world, predominantly in Italian, English and Spanish.

Many callers just need to be directed to the right Vatican office or official, and the sisters oblige with the aid of massive yearbooks and directories, as well as a solid knowledge of protocols and a hefty dose of discretion, Sister Anthony said.

Those who call asking for financial help are put through to the Vatican almoner’s office, which has provided aid recently to victims of war in Ukraine, floods in Brazil, and homelessness in Naples in southern Italy.

On a recent afternoon, standing by her office chair decorated with a flower-embroidered pillow, Sister Gabriella took a call from a priest inquiring about jointly celebrating a Mass with other priests as part of his jubilee pilgrimage. Since 2025 is a Holy Year for the Catholic Church, with 32 million pilgrims projected to visit Rome, related calls make up a large part of the 50-70 queries the nuns answer daily.

But then there are callers with questions the sisters can’t just look up or patch through — those in distress or angry or hopeless.

“We never get a call that’s the same as the previous one,” said Sister Simona, who’s worked the switchboard for 15 years.

Francis has built a reputation for eschewing formalities — from his way of dressing to his personal outreach to the poor and marginalized before his hospitalization — that projects more parish priest than head of state and leader of a global religion with 1.4 billion followers.

So some callers ask the nuns to just put him on the line.

“People of simple faith don’t understand that the pope cannot speak with everyone,” Sister Gabriella said.

Others need counseling or comfort. The sisters try to provide it within the boundaries of limited time and not being misconstrued as official Vatican spokespeople.

“But if I can give consolation or hope, I think that’s OK,” said Sister Anthony, who came to the Vatican a year ago from her native Philippines, where she was a provincial superior. “Some calls are very triggering.”

Among those calling with concerns about the pope recently was a woman who told Sister Anthony that she is Muslim but likes Francis, and wanted to inquire about his health.

“That’s very impressive for me,” the sister recalled, while adding that some callers are far less friendly. “Others are angry with the church, so we listen respectfully.”

Across the spectrum of callers, the sisters say they’re particularly happy to provide a woman’s touch.

“Pope Francis often reminds that the church is a mother,” Mother Micaela said. “And to be this voice, this sensibility, this feminine approach gives a sense of reliability.”

About 1,100 women, religious and lay, work at the Vatican. Francis has recently named a few to top posts, even though the priesthood and deaconate — and thus the majority of the church hierarchy — remain exclusively male.

The switchboard sisters find pride in both their unseen service and the increasing visibility of women at the Vatican.

“For me it’s a blessing to be in one community with the pope and serving the universal church,” Sister Anthony said. “Knowing there are more responsibilities for women, we feel very empowered.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Israel’s Cabinet votes to fire the head of the country’s Shin Bet internal security service

2025-03-21 07:49 Last Updated At：07:51

DEIR-AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s Cabinet has approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to fire the head of the country’s Shin Bet internal security service.

The late-night decision to sack Ronen Bar deepens a power struggle focused largely over who bears responsibility for the Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza.

It also could set the stage for a crisis over the country’s division of powers. Israel’s attorney general has ruled that the Cabinet has no legal basis to dismiss Bar.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

DEIR-AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes killed at least 85 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, according to local health officials. Hours later, Hamas fired three rockets at Israel without causing casualties, in the first such attack since Israel broke their ceasefire.

Israel resumed heavy strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, shattering the truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages and brought relative calm since late January. Israeli bombardments in the past three days have killed at least 592 people, said Zaher al-Waheidi, the head of the records department at the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Israeli military said it was again enforcing a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City. Palestinians were not being ordered to leave northern Gaza but can no longer enter, the military said, and are only allowed to move south on foot using the coastal road. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to what remains of their homes in the north during the ceasefire.

Israeli ground forces are also pushing into Gaza near the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the southern border city of Rafah, the military said Thursday. The operations come a day after Israel moved to split Gaza in two by retaking the strategic Netzarim corridor that divides Gaza's north from south.

The military ordered Palestinians to evacuate an area in central Gaza near the city of Khan Younis, saying it would operate there in response to Thursday’s rocket fire from Hamas. The Palestinian militant group said it targeted Tel Aviv. One rocket was intercepted and two fell in open areas, according to the army.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels also launched two missiles at Israel, one early Thursday morning and another in the evening, the military said. Both were intercepted before reaching Israeli airspace, according to the army, and no injuries were reported. Air raid sirens rang out and exploding interceptor rockets were heard in Jerusalem. There have been three such attacks since the United States began a new campaign of airstrikes against the Houthis earlier this week.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said overnight Israeli strikes killed at least 85 people, mostly women and children. The ministry's records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The Indonesian Hospital said it received 19 bodies after strikes in Beit Lahiya, near Gaza's northern border, which was heavily destroyed and largely depopulated earlier in the war.

“It was a bloody night for the people of Beit Lahiya,” said Fares Awad, head of the Health Ministry’s emergency service in northern Gaza, adding that rescuers were still searching the rubble. “The situation is catastrophic.”

Israel’s military said Thursday its airstrikes in Gaza had killed the head of Hamas’ internal security apparatus and two other militant commanders. Israel has said it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas. A United Nations-backed group of human rights experts accused Israel last week of “disproportionate violence against women and children” during the war in Gaza.

One of the strikes early Thursday hit the Abu Daqa family’s home in Abasan al-Kabira, a village outside Khan Younis near the border with Israel. It was in an area the Israeli military ordered evacuated earlier this week, encompassing most of eastern Gaza.

The strike killed at least 16 people, mostly women and children, according to the nearby European Hospital, which received the dead. Those killed included a father and his seven children, as well as the parents and brother of a month-old baby who survived along with her grandparents.

“Another tough night,” said Hani Awad, who was helping rescuers search for more survivors in the rubble. “The house collapsed over the people’s heads.”

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration reiterated its support for Israel, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying, “The president made it very clear to Hamas that if they did not release all of the hostages there would be all hell to pay.”

Israel, which cut off the supply of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza's roughly 2 million Palestinians, has vowed to intensify its operations until Hamas releases the 59 hostages it holds — 24 of whom are believed alive — and gives up control of the territory.

Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the ceasefire agreement mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.

Hamas says it's willing to hand over power to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority or a committee of political independents but will not lay down its arms until Israel ends its decades-long occupation of lands the Palestinians want for a future state.

The breakdown of the ceasefire has been met with anger in Israel, where many support the plight of the hostage families to free their loved ones.

Hundreds of Israelis gathered Thursday outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem to protest his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the country’s head of internal security. Netanyahu’s Cabinet met late Thursday to vote on the firing, a move that many view as undermining the balance of powers in Israel.

“Instead of firing the head of the Shin Bet, just to avoid an investigation, I think that the prime minister should be involved in rescuing the last hostages there are left in Gaza to die,” said Michal Halperin, a protester.

Police used a water canon to disperse the crowd after protesters tried to break through police barricades.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Most of the hostages have been freed in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered the bodies of dozens more.

Israel's retaliatory offensive, among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history, has killed more than 49,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were militants, but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war at its height displaced around 90% of Gaza's population and has caused vast destruction across the territory.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war