Oh dear. Those terrible Israelis are at it again. They have just prevented the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, from visiting and praying inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday. Just one more outrage, we are being asked to believe, from the mad-dog apartheid genocidal Israelis. Or was it? More on the manipulation of the facts to blame Israel unjustly can be found here: “Police reach agreement with Latin Patriarchate to allow limited groups in Church of Holy Sepulchre,” by Tzvi Jasper and Asher Smith, Jerusalem Post, March 29, 2026:
The Israeli police, alongside a representative from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, have reached an agreement by which limited groups of Christians will be allowed to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the police announced on Monday.According to the new agreement, church representatives will be allowed to hold ceremonies, with services to be broadcast, as wartime restrictions on public gatherings remain.In a joint statement issued by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land, the churches thanked President Isaac Herzog for his intervention and stressed the need to safeguard freedom of worship during the war.The Israel Police had prevented Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said.Pizzaballa, accompanied by the official guardian of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Father Francesco Ielpo, was going to the church to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass when police stopped them and forced them to turn back, it said Traditional Palm Sunday celebrations and the annual procession into Jerusalem had been canceled due to ongoing security concerns and restrictions imposed by the Home Front Command.
Pizzaballa and Ielpo had been making their way “privately and without any characteristics of a procession or ceremonial act” when the police stopped them, the Patriarchate said.
It was the first time in centuries that the heads of the church were prevented from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it said.
Yes, and it was the first time in history that missiles and drones were launched at Jerusalem, which is why Pizzaballa and Ielpo were kept out of the Church of the Sepulchre, not to punish them but to lessen the likelihood of any harm coming to them.
“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 Patriarchate said….
The Patriarch’s remark was venomous. He knows perfectly well why the Israeli police prevented him from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There have been thousands of ballistic missiles and drones launched in the last month from Iran into Israel. Some are aimed at targets inside Jerusalem. Some fall on Jerusalem because they fell short of their intended targets outside the city. Some missile shave been hit when flying over the city by an Israeli interceptor and shrapnel falls beneath. That’s what happened on March 20, when shrapnel from an incoming Iranian missile that had been hit by an interceptor fell on the Old City, near Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western wall.
Israel decided that for the safety of all residents and visitors, it would close down the sacred sites of all three religions until Iranian drones and missiles ceased being such a danger. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was not singled out for closure; the Western Wall and Al-Aqsa Mosque were also closed. The Israelis were doing this only to protect people of all faiths, not to discomfit any of them. Yet the Latin Patriarch never mentioned the closures of Al-Aqsa and the Western Wall. He made it appear that Israel’s aim was only to penalize the Christians. Nor did Pizzabella ever mention the shrapnel that had fallen on the Old City just a week before, that explains the Israeli decision to enforce a temporary shutdown of all three sites.
Public gatherings were cancelled in order to avoid the possibility of mass casualties from an Iranian drone or missile. That was the only reason.
The prevention of Pizzaballa’s entry into the church was a “manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure,” the Patriarchate said….
Nonsense. It was the statement by the Patriarchate that was “manifestly unreasonable.” Given all the Iranian missiles and drones flying over or into the Old City, Israel had a duty to prevent visitors from endangering themselves. It would have been terrible if people, especially high-ranking clerics such as Pizzaballa, had been harmed while visiting any of those three sites — the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Al-Aqsa Mosque. Preventing Pizzabella from entering the church was not “manifestly unreasonable,” but eminently sensible. Does Pizzabella know more than the IDF does about the threat posed by Iranian missiles to the Old City? He was prevented from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for his own good. Jews, for the same reason, were forbidden to visit the Western Wall. Muslims were prevented from visiting Al Aqsa. Why didn’t Pizzaballa mention that?
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X: “I condemn the decision of the Israeli police, which joins a disturbing sequence of violations of the status quo of the holy places in Jerusalem.” He called for freedom of worship to be ensured in Jerusalem.
Macron called for “freedom of worship” to be ensured in Jerusalem. But it already exists, and has been scrupulously enforced ever since June 10, 1967, when Israel took back the Old City from Jordan, which had seized it in 1949. Before then Jews were not allowed to visit either the Temple Mount or the Western wall, the two most sacred sites in Judaism. Macron knows how faithfully the Israeli government enforces freedom of religion, and he also knows that when the Jordanians were in control between 1949 and 1967 there was no such freedom, but he simply can’t stop himself from putting in his two-cents’ worth, whenever he has a chance to take a whack at Israel.
The Latin Patriarch, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, should now, by way of a mea culpa, publicly explain himself as follows: “I did not know that the same restrictions were put on access to the Western wall and to Al-Aqsa Mosque as on access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I now understand that the denial of access to all three holy sites by the Israeli police was prompted only by a sincere desire on the part of the authorities to protect people from the missiles that are unceasingly launched at the Old City by the Iranians. I regret my original expression of dissatisfaction with what I now understand was being done solely for security reasons, and I apologize to the government of Israel for my hasty outburst.”
He won’t do it, of course. But he should.
shosh says
I say let the catholic religion do what it does best, blaspheme God by worshiping a dead woman. She had multiple children after giving birth to the Mashiach. So she is no longer a virgin. She is not sinless. She was conceived in sin and born in corruption just like the entire human race. She was forgiven of her sin by the Son of God Who paid her penalty of breaking the Law by entering 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit for three days and three nighrs for her and for everyone who comes to Yeshua for Salvation. There is no salvation in the catholic religion.
somehistory says
I read this on the daily news feed. Sometimes it’s necessary to close off such things….for the safety of those who would be attending. Presenting it as a way for the Israeli government to persecute the Catholics is wrong.
During the plandemic, churches were ordered closed, and even congregants masked and closed off in their cars were being charged. That was ‘persecution.’
If the church was hit by missiles from iran while the guys were inside, who would be blamed for any injury or death?
OLD GUY says
Somehistory says: I totally agree with your analysis, the media would have crucified Israel if an attack would have happened.
somehistory says
Thank you, Old Guy.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I’m assuming that the Latin Patriarch is a Catholic institution in that area. Given that, and given the hostility of the last 2 popes to Israel, I’d say Israel would have been perfectly in their rights to shut it off due to the war. While Candace and Fuentes may be Catholic, it’ll be funny to see Episcopalian Tucker ding them for shuttering a church he doesn’t believe in, particularly when he doesn’t care much for Jewish access to Temple Mount
Taffy says
Israel has a nationwide policy during the Iran War to not allow gatherings of over 50 people in facilities without bomb shelters. I will admit 50 is arbitrary, but it ensures its EMS, ERs, hospitals, morgues, etc. are not overwhelmed should a missile hit a crowded area. In other words it limits its mass casualties to 50. The naysayers claim that the chance of a missile hitting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is remote, but the chance that a missile will hit areas of mass congregation in all of Israel is pretty large, and in fact it happened In Beit Shemesh, killing a large number of worshipers in a synagogue and injuring many more.
Israel in the past has asked the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to build a bomb shelter, but for reasons best known to the church, they failed to do so,
Now the spin that the MSM gives is Israel is precluding a Cardinal from entering the church on a Catholic Holy Day. Shame on them. Israel is merely protecting its allocation of resources during wartime. I’m sure that during WWII, the Catholic Church in the US has their coffee and sugar rations, along with the rest of the population.
Taffy says
I made a mistake. The number allowed to congregate in one place varies by location, but is generally 50.
crown says
From Wikipedia:
“Pizzaballa and the Council of Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem denounced Christian Zionism as a “damaging ideology”.
Maybe he and Tucker can be BFFs.
ploome says
this is his BFF
“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday presented Syrian-born Archbishop Hilarion Capucci with a medal of honor in Rome for his longtime aid to the Palestinian people.
Capucci, born in Aleppo in 1922, is the retired titular archbishop of Caesarea for the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.
He was imprisoned by Israel in the past for security offenses.
In 1974, Capucci, then an East Jerusalem resident, was arrested by Israeli security forces for smuggling arms into the West Bank for the Palestinian Liberation Army (the military wing of the PLO), using his diplomatic status as cover. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but was released two years later due to pressure from the Vatican.
……….Abbas was scheduled to meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican later Thursday”
nice. allies and friends supporting each other
Kepha says
Uncle Kepha supports modern Israel for political and natural law reasons, but does not accept the Dispensationalist scheme (the people who say their mythical “rapture” is going to happen soon every time someone in the Middle East burps).The Chosen People of God are gathered about Jesus Christ, not in some piece of Middle Eastern real estate. So far, the patriarchs are right.
But, modern Israel has a far better track record of respecting persons and their property and defending minority rights than any of the countries seeking to destroy it–and I understand that pre-1967 Israel is the only portion of the Middle East where the indigenous Christian population is increasing. Those Patriarchs and Papal Nuncios ought to be aware of that.
When the “poor, oppressed Palestinians” publish propaganda films of murdering children and raping women, they earn my disgust; and I recall Gazans dancing in the streets on 09/11/01–when some of the businesses that generate the taxes that go to UNRRWA and support them took a huge hit. Zionism may be wrong-headed (but it would not be justice to uproot 7-8 million Israeli Jews at this point), but the whole “Palestinian” cause has produced nothing but hate and destruction. It is a disgrace that the descendants of the losers of an-Nakhba are kept stateless everywhere but Jordan down to the fourth and fifthe generations. I’d love to see the Patriarchs address that.