Israeli police barred Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Fr. Francesco Ielpo from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday, preventing them from presiding over the Mass, Church authorities said.
In a joint statement, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land said the two leaders were stopped en route while “proceeding privately and without any characteristics of a procession or ceremonial act,” and were “compelled to turn back.”
It marked a historic disruption, as “for the first time in centuries, the Heads of the Church were prevented from celebrating the Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” the statement said.
The Church bodies described the incident as “a grave precedent,” warning that it disregards “the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who, during this week, look to Jerusalem.”
Reflecting on the day’s events, Pizzaballa said the disruption to traditional celebrations underscored the broader impact of the war.
“In this afternoon of Palm Sunday we gather without a procession, without palms waving through the streets… It is the war that has interrupted our festive journey,” he said in a meditation delivered in Gethsemane.
Church leaders had complied with restrictions since the start of the war, noting that “public gatherings were cancelled, attendance was prohibited, and arrangements were made to broadcast the celebrations to hundreds of millions of faithful worldwide.”
“Our brothers and sisters of the Holy Land cannot fill the streets this Sunday nor join their voices to the festive procession,” Pizzaballa added.
Blocking the two clerics, who “bear the highest ecclesiastical responsibility for the Catholic Church and the Holy Places,” amounted to “a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure,” the statement said.
Pizzaballa also pointed to the human toll of the conflict, saying, “Today Jesus weeps once more over Jerusalem… He weeps for all the victims of a war that seems without end.”
It added that the decision, described as “hasty and fundamentally flawed” and “tainted by improper considerations,” represents “an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship, and respect for the Status Quo.”
The Patriarchate and the Custody expressed “profound sorrow to the Christian faithful in the Holy Land and throughout the world that prayer on one of the most sacred days of the Christian calendar has thus been prevented.”
Pizzaballa said, “War will not erase the resurrection. Grief will not extinguish hope.”
