The final call lasted 30 seconds. Just enough time to say hello and ask if everyone was okay. But for Gaza’s tiny Christian population, the phone call from Pope Francis was a ray of hope that shone through the horrors of war.

For months, the pontiff spoke by telephone almost every night with people sheltering in a Catholic church in the battered enclave. “The evenings became known as the pope’s time,” a priest in Gaza said.

On Monday night, following the news of the death of Pope Francis, Father Gabriel Romanelli's cellphone did not ring at 8 p.m. as it normally would. This was normally the time the pontiff would call the priest at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City every night throughout the war to check on how those huddled inside Gaza's lone Catholic church were coping with a devastating war.