JERUSALEM – Franciscan Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who has held the role of Latin patriarch of Jerusalem since 2020, has become a prominent contender to take over from the late Pope Francis.

The conclave will select the new Pope in Rome for the world’s more than 1 billion Catholics on Wednesday.

Pope Francis, a Jesuit, appointed Pizzaballa as a cardinal in September 2023. In the following month, a violent invasion by Hamas in Israel resulted in over 1,200 deaths and more than 250 individuals being held captive. Shortly after these events, Pizzaballa expressed his willingness to become a hostage himself, offering his life to the jihad terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza, to secure the release of children taken by the extremist group.

He added, “The visits to the stables, where I was sent to fetch milk, the joy of riding in the horse-drawn carts to go make hay, the simple country games, and so on. It was a simple and genuine world, and a sober and happy life. Only with time did I realize how that world would influence me by giving me a style and pursuit of sobriety and sincerity.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has known Pizzaballa since the turn of the new century in 2000 and praised Pizzaballa’s “fluid, eloquent Hebrew.”

Herzog previously said, “He is a brilliant person. He is a leader knowledgeable and extremely well acquainted with the complexities of our region and enjoys the trust of all the concerned parties in Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and Israel. They respect him tremendously. His name precedes him.”

Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, arrives at the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, on Christmas Eve in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Sunday, Dec. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

However, Pizzabella caused a row with Israel’s government when he signed a statement urging Israel to “avoid killing innocent people” in its campaign to oust the U.S.-designated terrorist entity Hamas in Gaza. 

From the Israeli perspective, the statement failed to blast Hamas’s massacre. Pizzaballa walked back his support for the statement and declared Hamas’s massacre as “unacceptable and incomprehensible barbarity.”