“A Grave Precedent” — Israel Bars Cardinal Pizzaballa from Palm Sunday Mass at the Holy Sepulchre
For the first time in centuries, the head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land was physically prevented from entering Christianity's holiest site. The Vatican has condemned the action.
In a stunning violation of religious liberty, Israeli police blocked Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday morning.
The Custos of the Holy Land, Fr. Francesco Ielpo — the official guardian of the church — was turned away alongside him.
The two were walking privately, without any procession or ceremonial act, on their way to celebrate Mass at the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead.
They were compelled to turn back. For the first time in centuries, the leaders of the Catholic Church in Jerusalem could not celebrate Palm Sunday Mass at the Holy Sepulchre.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land issued a joint statement calling the action “a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure” that represents “an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship, and respect for the Status Quo.”
The Patriarchate described this as “a grave precedent” that “disregards the sensibilities of billions of people” during Christianity’s most sacred week.
Church leaders had cooperated fully with Israeli security restrictions since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. The Patriarchate cancelled public gatherings, prohibited general attendance at liturgies, and arranged to broadcast Holy Week celebrations to hundreds of millions of faithful worldwide.
Cardinal Pizzaballa himself announced on March 22 that “ordinary celebrations open to all cannot take place” during Holy Week and that the traditional Palm Sunday procession from the Mount of Olives would not take place this year.
None of that compliance mattered. Israeli police shut down all holy sites in the Old City to worshippers, citing the narrow streets and the inability of emergency vehicles to access the area during mass casualty events.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office offered a different explanation: Pizzaballa was stopped “out of special concern for his safety,” because “Iran has repeatedly targeted the holy sites of all three monotheistic religions in Jerusalem with ballistic missiles.”
The Patriarchate rejected both justifications, noting that the two men were proceeding alone, quietly, without ceremony — and that the decision was “tainted by improper considerations.”
In Gaza, where the war’s toll has been most catastrophic, Fr. Gabriel Romanelli celebrated Palm Sunday Mass at Holy Family Church and handed palm fronds to his parishioners — a reminder that Catholics under active bombardment were freer to worship than the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
The diplomatic fallout was immediate. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the denial of entry “constitutes an offense not only against believers but against every community that recognizes religious freedom.”
Her foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, summoned the Israeli ambassador to Rome to demand clarifications, while French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the decision as part of “a worrying increase in violations of the status of Jerusalem’s Holy Sites.”
The Vatican itself issued a statement noting that the heads of the churches had “acted with full responsibility” and complied with every restriction imposed upon them — a pointed reminder that the Church had done everything asked of it and was punished anyway.
In Rome, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square and turned the liturgy into a rebuke of every government waging war in God’s name.
“Jesus is the King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” the pope said in his homily. He invoked the prophet Isaiah: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.”
During the Angelus, Leo prayed especially for Christians in the Middle East, “who are suffering the consequences of a brutal conflict and, in many cases, are unable to observe fully the liturgies of these holy days.”
Cardinal Pizzaballa, barred from the tomb of Christ, celebrated Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of All Nations at Gethsemane — the garden where Jesus prayed before his arrest.
“War will not erase the resurrection,” Pizzaballa told his congregation. “Grief will not extinguish hope.” He continued: “Today, we do not carry palms in procession. Instead, we carry the cross — a cross that is not a useless burden, but the source of true peace.”
Pizzaballa’s moral authority in the Holy Land is unmatched among Christian leaders. In October 2023, he offered his own life in exchange for the Israeli children taken hostage by Hamas.
Asked by journalists whether he would submit himself for the hostages’ release, the cardinal said there was “an absolute availability on my part” to do whatever was necessary to bring those children home.
He has worn a keffiyeh in Bethlehem and entered Gaza’s war zones to comfort his parishioners after Israeli strikes. Israelis, Palestinians, and the Vatican all regarded him as a bridge between peoples — and on Palm Sunday 2026, Israeli police would not let him walk through the door of his own church.
This represents the lowest moment between the Catholic Church and the Israeli government in modern history. The relationship has weathered disagreements over Palestinian statehood, disputes over Vatican diplomatic recognition, and decades of tension over the status of Jerusalem’s holy sites.
But physically barring the patriarch from the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday — the day Christians commemorate Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem — crosses a line that no prior dispute approached. The government of Israel prevented the Catholic Church from worshipping at the place where it believes salvation began.
I believe the path toward an amicable future between the Catholic Church and the State of Israel runs through one necessary change: Benjamin Netanyahu must leave office.
His government’s prosecution of the war in Iran, its systematic erosion of Christian access to Jerusalem’s holy sites, and now the barring of the Latin Patriarch from the Holy Sepulchre have made normal relations impossible. It is difficult to imagine a more self-destructive act for U.S.-Israel relations than blocking Catholic access to Mass during the first Holy Week of the first American pope.
Catholic diplomacy operates on decades-long timelines and deep institutional patience. But patience requires a partner willing to honor the basic terms of coexistence, and this government has demonstrated, repeatedly, that it is not.
Pope Leo’s words from this morning’s homily will echo far beyond St. Peter’s Square. Jesus does not answer the prayers of those who wage war — he rejects them.
The Israeli government should consider what it means to bar the Prince of Peace’s church from the site of his resurrection, and whether the man responsible for that decision is capable of building anything other than ruin.
At Letters from Leo, we stand with Cardinal Pizzaballa and the millions of Catholics worldwide who believe that the freedom to worship at Christianity’s holiest sites is not a privilege granted by any government — it is a right rooted in the dignity of every person and the sanctity of every faith.
In an era when governments invoke God’s name to justify missiles and invoke security to deny the faithful access to prayer, we remain rooted in a faith that refuses to let political convenience override religious freedom or human dignity.
This is the fastest-growing Catholic community in the country because people are hungry for moral clarity in a world that increasingly treats the sacred as expendable.
They want a faith that names injustice when it sees it — whether the perpetrator is an ally or an adversary — and right now, as a cardinal is turned away from the tomb of Christ, that hunger has never been more urgent.
If you believe this movement matters — Catholics and people of goodwill standing for religious freedom and human dignity against the forces that would make worship a casualty of war — I am asking you to join us.
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Thank you for reading. I’ll see you on the road.
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