For the first time in centuries, Israel has prohibited Catholic officials from privately praying at a historic Jerusalem church due to security concerns related to ongoing conflict, drawing criticism from U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee.
Catholic leaders had already been informed that they could not conduct Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a revered site believed to be where Jesus was crucified and buried, on a significant holy day.
On Sunday morning, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem, Father Francesco Ielpo, who is responsible for the sacred site, and two other priests were en route to the church for private prayer when they were stopped by Israeli police, according to Catholic officials.
While Huckabee acknowledged the necessity of suspending large gatherings amid retaliatory strikes from Iran, he criticized the decision to prevent the four clergymen from making a private visit to the church in Jerusalem’s Old City.
“The action today by the Israel National Police to deny Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and three other priests from entering the Church to offer a blessing on Palm Sunday is an unfortunate overreach, already having major repercussions around the world,” Huckabee expressed on X.
The ambassador emphasized that the clergymen’s visit to honor Palm Sunday adhered to Israel’s Home Front Command Guidelines, which limited public gatherings to no more than 50 people.
“For the Patriarch to be barred from entry to the Church on Palm Sunday for a private ceremony is difficult to understand or justify,” Huckabee said. “Israel has indicated it will work with the Patriarch to accommodate a safe means of carrying out Holy Week activities.”
Israeli police said in blocking the Mass, “The Old City and the holy sites constitute a complex area that does not allow access for large emergency and rescue vehicles, which significantly challenges response capabilities and poses a real risk to human life in the event of a mass casualty incident.”
As for the private prayers, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said police would be meeting with Pizzaballa to reach a compromise, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Netanyahu’s office insisted that there had been “no malicious intent whatsoever,” noting that an Iranian missile fragment had crashed into the church in previous days.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he called Pizzaballa after the incident to apologize and express his “great sorrow.
“I clarified that the incident stemmed from security concerns due to the continuous threat of missile attacks from the Iranian terror regime against the civilian population in Israel, following previous incidents in which Iranian missiles fell in the area of the Old City of Jerusalem in recent days,” Herzog said.
Along with Huckabee, the Patriarchate and the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land both condemned the incident, noting it was the first time in centuries that heads of the Catholic Church were prevented from celebrating Palm Sunday at the historic site.
“This incident is a grave precedent, and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who, during this week, look to Jerusalem,” the Catholic groups said in a statement.
The organizations ultimately slammed the decision to stop the clergymen’s trip as “a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure.”
The fallout also led Italy’s foreign ministry to summon Jonathan Peled, Israel’s ambassador to Rome, to discuss the incident.
