Kristen Theriault joins The Catholic Morning Show to discuss Ruins and Light: In the Epicenter of Unrest, the powerful memoir of Father Gabriel Romanelli — the Catholic priest who chose to remain at the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza City after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. Written in diary form and co-authored with a French journalist, the book is a raw and inspiring account of daily survival, unwavering priestly witness, and radical hope in the midst of war. This is a faith-over-fear story unfolding in real time.
Kristen Theriault joins the program to unpack one of the most extraordinary Catholic memoirs in recent memory: Ruins and Light: In the Epicenter of Unrest by Father Gabriel Romanelli, the Claretian priest who serves the roughly one thousand Christians remaining in Gaza City at the Church of the Holy Family — the only Catholic church in Gaza.
When war erupted on October 7, 2023, Father Romanelli was in Jerusalem but returned immediately to his parish, where displaced Christians — including those who fled after the bombing of the nearby Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church — took refuge. The book was co-authored with a French journalist from Le Figaro through a series of phone calls and interviews, giving it an urgent, diary-like quality. Father Romanelli's recurring phrase: "I am well for today" — a lived expression of Give us this day our daily bread.
Kristen walks through the brutal conditions inside the church compound: bombs falling nearby, the church itself struck by fire, community members killed by sniper fire and tank rounds, Father Romanelli himself wounded. The community sifted worms from flour to make bread, soaked raisins in water to make wine for Mass, and parents spent their days foraging for food for their children.
Through it all, Father Romanelli — himself a cancer survivor diagnosed in 2020 — maintained and preached authentic hope, inspired by Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and rooted in the Eucharist. Cardinal Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, wrote the foreword, describing the Gaza priest's role as simultaneously spiritual, pastoral, and humanitarian. Father Romanelli has been in regular contact with the Holy Father, first Pope Francis and now Pope Leo.
Ruins and Light is available at Sophia Institute Press.
#FatherGabrielRomanelli #Gaza #RuinsAndLight #Catholicmemoir #FaithOverFear #HolyFamilyGaza #CatholicPodcast #IowaCatholicRadio #CatholicMorningShow #MiddleEast #ChristianPersecution #SophiaInstitute #GazaWar #CatholicRadio #PriestInGaza #HopeInSuffering #CardinalPizzaballa #PopeLeo #ChurchInGaza