Israel stops cardinal entering holiest Christian site ‘for first time in centuries’

Israeli police prevented a top Vatican cardinal from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate Palm Sunday mass for the first time in centuries.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the head of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, was blocked from entering the holiest site in Christianity.

The incident caused a diplomatic rift with Italy, and Antonio Tajani, the country’s foreign minister, said he had summoned Israel’s ambassador over the incident.

Large gatherings of all religions have been banned since the outbreak of war.

Cardinal Pizzaballa, who was one of the favourites to become the pope last year, was stopped alongside the Most Reverend Fr Francesco Ielpo as they were “proceeding privately without any characteristics of a procession or ceremonial act”, the Church said.

“As a result, and 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.

“This incident is a grave precedent and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world, who, during this week, look to Jerusalem.”

Due to the Iran war, Israel has banned large gatherings – including in synagogues, churches and mosques – and capped public events at 50 people.

Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week for Christians, remembers Christ’s final entry into Jerusalem, days before his crucifixion and resurrection, according to the Gospels.

The Latin Patriarchate had also cancelled the traditional Palm Sunday procession from the Mount of Olives, which normally draws thousands of worshippers.

Cardinal Pizzaballa has served in Israel for many years and speaks fluent Hebrew. He visited Gaza several times during the recent war, and offered himself to Hamas in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages.

The Latin Patriarchate said: “The heads of churches have acted with full responsibility and, since the outset of the war, have complied with all imposed restrictions.

“Preventing the entry of the Cardinal and the Custos, who bear the highest ecclesiastical responsibility for the Catholic Church and the Holy Places, constitutes a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure,” it said.

“This hasty and fundamentally flawed decision, tainted by improper considerations, represents an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship, and respect for the status quo.”

Israeli police did not formally respond to a request for comment about the incident.

Officials, however, were reported as saying that they acted in accordance with Home Front Command guidelines, which have been in place since the start of the war.

Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, said in a statement that the incident was “an offence not only to the faithful but to any community that respects religious freedom”.

Emmanuel Macron also condemned the move, saying it “adds to the troubling increase in violations of the status of Jerusalem’s Holy Sites”.

Pope Leo XIV, speaking after the Angelus prayer in Rome on Sunday, paid tribute to “the Christians of the Middle East, who suffer the consequences of a terrible conflict and in many cases cannot fully live the rites of these holy days”.

He also condemned the decision by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war, a conflict he described as “atrocious”.

Pope Leo said that God rejected the prayers of leaders who started wars and had “hands full of blood,” in unusually forceful remarks as the conflict in the Middle East entered its second month.

Addressing tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square the pontiff said that Jesus cannot be used to justify any wars.

“This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” Leo, the first US pope, told crowds.

“[Jesus] does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood,” the Pope said, citing a Bible passage.

The pontiff has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire, and criticised military air strikes as indiscriminate.