Culture Israeli police stop Latin Patriarch from entering Church of Holy Sepulchre

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2026-03/israeli-police-stop-latin-patriarch-of-jerusalem-from-entering.html

https://archive.ph/3wDoc

In a joint press release, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custos of the Holy Land report they were blocked from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by Israeli police, calling it "a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure."

Vatican News

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land have released a joint statement stating that, on the morning of Palm Sunday, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, together with the Custos of the Holy Land, Fr. Francesco Ielpo, OFM, the official Guardian of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, were prevented from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as they made their way to celebrate the Palm Sunday Mass.

Released on Sunday, the statement said both Church leaders were stopped en route by Israeli police, "while proceeding privately and without any characteristics of a procession or ceremonial act" and were forced to turn back.

"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 noted.

It described the event as "a grave precedent" and disregarding "the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who, during this week, look to Jerusalem."

Blocked despite compliance with restrictions​

The statement said the Patriarch and the Custos of the Holy Land have acted with full responsibility since the start of the war, complying with all restrictions requiring that public gatherings be cancelled, attendance prohibited, and arrangements be made to broadcast the celebrations to hundreds of millions of faithful worldwide "who, during these days of Easter, turn their eyes to Jerusalem and to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre."

"Grossly disproportionate measure"​

Preventing the entry of Cardinal Pizzaballa and Fr. Ielpo, who hold the highest ecclesiastical responsibility for the Catholic Church and Holy Places, "constitutes a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure."

The joint statement further underscored that "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."

The Patriarch and Custos both expressed their "profound sorrow" to the Christian faithful in the Holy Land and around the world "that prayer on one of the most sacred days of the Christian calendar has thus been prevented."

 

[Maori Kiwifruit Growers]

So I'm of two minds about it. Right now all major outdoor religious services across Jerusalem are canceled. So no Western Wall for the Jews, no dome of the rock/al asqua mosque for the muslims, And no church for the Christians. I've heard that the church was also shut down because an Iranian missile was intercepted over Jerusalem and the entire old part of the city where all the religious stuff is centered was just covered in interceptor and Iranian ballistic missile parts. So they shut down the church because the Iranian missiles punched a hole through the roof and maybe they want to bring a structural engineer. I don't know what's going on over there. So I understand the Israeli government's fear you know, their missiles raining down over Israel, basically every 30 minutes at this point, the last thing they need is an Iranian missile to get through the iron dome And hit some worshipers and kill them. (the ballistic missile system cannot stop every missile. It can only stop a majority of them mathematically it's impossible for even the best missile system to defend against every missile), the fear is also some sort of terrorism, you know some Arab could decide. He wants to martyr himself for allah and kill Christians/Jews/innocents

If that's the case then I totally understand it.

This could also be a case of someone not explaining to someone what the fuck is actually going on. It could very well be some lower level. Police officer heard the order that no religious services anywhere are allowed in the old city of Jerusalem and so he just took that order and face value and didn't think about it.

I know domestically in Israel people are upset because the government has said that all religious locations in Jerusalem are closed. However, bars are allowed to be open and groups of the 12 people are allowed. So people are saying " why can't I drink but I can't go to service? This makes no sense" (The restrictions are in place because of rocket attacks and a fear of terrorism but more so the rockets).

But you know the Israelis are terrible at describing things and the police force is headed by Ben gavier, who thinks that he's the smartest man in the room, so I don't know what the fuck is going on. Either this is completely understandable, or someone needs to get fired over it.


My view is that if it's the first option then I totally get it, but if it's more of a second option That's fucking bullshit and I think that the Christians should be able to at least have something going on. You know if they can't have a big mass then you know some of the priests or something. Regardless they need to explain wtf is going on.


My hunch is that this is once again Israel not being able to properly describe a completely understandable situation.

 

[AssignedEva]

Was there any reason given? It doesn't say in the article.

They'd coordinated the visit in advance with the authorities, and the ceremony was planned to take place without a public audience (they were going to broadcast it). So no reason given. Israeli police separately stopped the Patriarch and the Custos, who were heading there from different places, so this was clearly planned rather than one policeman going rogue.

 

[not william stenchever]

All Israel had to do was let American and European leftists make fools of themselves by being laughably bad at antisemitism, but no, let's snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

[Exterminate Leftists]

Protfags won't care and they are Israel's biggest dick riders. Protestants are niggercattle.

 

[N Space]

Inb4 CTR explains to us why this was justified and the goyim's fault.

 

[The Omni Cuckold]

they should care if they wanna keep sucking the tit of the american taxpayer

Israel has been killing them for a while in Lebanon, and not just air strikes where they can claim a Hezbollah was near by. The IDF group troops have been killing Catholics too. The US for the most part doesn't care and it doesn't even get reported in American media to reach most who would care.

 

[Fishnumm]

Israel has been killing them for a while in Lebanon, and not just air strikes where they can claim a Hezbollah was near by. The IDF group troops have been killing Catholics too. The US for the most part doesn't care and it doesn't even get reported in American media to reach most who would care.

im talking long term funding

there's zero chance trump will cut any of it lol

 

[Gap Hag]

I'll er on the side of caution of maori who i saw willing to listen to people in the theology thread and assume it was a misunderstanding....but with jews never be surprised if they did this to be fucking retarded.

 

[Maori Kiwifruit Growers]

I would have waltzed in there and caused an international incident. Looks great on Israel when Christianity is rapidly growing in the country.

Christianity is only rapidly growing amongst other Christians. So in Israel, Christian conversions aren't actually very high. The only country in the region that actually has a high rate of Christian conversions is Iran. In Israel because the Christian population is not persecuted, they have a lot of kids, they also highly educated, it's very funny, in America if you want to send your kid to a good school you're sending to the Jewish school, in Israel. If you want to send your kid to a really good school, you send them to the Christian School. But schools aside, the Christian population is growing because the Christians aren't being persecuted. They're allowed to have kids so they have kids so there more Christians.

And yes Israel has terrible optics.


Also good luck waltzing and you're going to get this shit kicked out of you and arrested.

They'd coordinated the visit in advance with the authorities, and the ceremony was planned to take place without a public audience (they were going to broadcast it). So no reason given. Israeli police separately stopped the Patriarch and the Custos, who were heading there from different places, so this was clearly planned rather than one policeman going rogue.

I think this was one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing. Remember there are two types of police in Israel and especially in Jerusalem. You have the standard police which are just your police, and then you have similar to the French gendarmerie (Also known as the Israeli border Police). When I was in Jerusalem I saw that the border Police were in charge of protecting the holy sites. And generally, if you're in the border Police there's a good chance that you are drafted because the IDF is a draft army. One of the units you could be in is the border police. I can see a situation where they notified the police but then the border Police didn't find out and the border Police had the last word (because it's the army, One could assume they have better Intel). This could also be a case of a like 22-year-old Commander. Not really understanding what's going on. I wouldn't really prescribe malice, it's more likely this is stupidity. And I can promise you if it is malice someone's getting fired.

 

[Maori Kiwifruit Growers]

All Israel had to do was let American and European leftists make fools of themselves by being laughably bad at antisemitism, but no, let's snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

It's the Israel way, tactical and strategic victory with a nice propaganda defeat (somehow).

(And I'm not joking, this is why people keep thinking they can take on Israel and win)

 

[evilsponge]

isreal does the dumbest shit jews are horrible with optics

"Ay Isreal, that's the fucking boss you're talking too. Watch yer mouths."

 

[Maori Kiwifruit Growers]

I'll er on the side of caution of maori who i saw willing to listen to people in the theology thread and assume it was a misunderstanding....but with jews never be surprised if they did this to be fucking retarded.

Slight correction "with Jews never be surprised if they did this because they are optically retarded"


My religion is best described as book smart, not Street Smart.

Everything we do is explainable and really isn't that retarded, but from the outsider it makes no fucking sense (for example, the whole chicken thing is a small regional custom where the idea is that all the sins go into the chicken and then the chicken is slaughtered. Thus we have "shown God that we are not simply asking for forgiveness but we have just killed our sins" Obviously we don't believe that the sins literally go into the chicken. It's like a symbolic tradition and the slotted chicken gets donated because it's a perfectly good chicken. (Why would it not be donated) (Also in Judaism we believe that the casting way of these sins are only between you and God. Any fuck ups you've done between you and another human are between you and another human and you and another human got to deal with that and God ain't going to fucking help you for that). But from the outside looking at it's fucking bizarre. The difference is that Jews just won't explain it, because the reasoning behind it has these like layers and layers of traditional thought and connotation that we just don't want to tell people cuz it's hard to explain. But if you think that's weird. Honestly think about most Catholic traditions they make no sense from the outside of looking in, I mean you eat crackers and drink wine and that's the body and soul of Jesus and that's not cannibalism (somehow?!?!).


But yeah no we suck at explaining everything. It's fucking horrible. Judaism has a belief that we were given rules by God on how to live a moral life, but we were chosen to be given extra rules that only apply to us, and make our barrier to entry to the world to come (heaven) much harder than everyone else. So in order to ensure we are doing all the rules properly, it's just best if we live amongst ourselves. (It's like how democracy is good but only American style democracy makes sense for America. No other country can copy it, or should copy it and expect to recreate America).


For example, when we say shit like "it's for the goyium not us" we don't mean that it's lesser like it's a lower quality product, what we mean is that it doesn't really work for us. Like coalition parties are not an American Democratic thing. It's a European Democratic thing in European democracies. Also goyium is just yiddish word for gentile which literally just means other nation. So we're effectively saying that we, the Jewish Nation do not do what other nations do.

An example would be something like saying that gun control is for the goyium. We're saying that the Europeans have gun control and that's for them but as Americans we don't believe in gun control.

 

[Gap Hag]

An example would be something like saying that gun control is for the goyium. We're saying that the Europeans have gun control and that's for them but as Americans we don't believe in gun control.

Bad example though because gun control is inherently something that's awful when you look at statistics, how do you account for some jews off the cuff under recordings and videos shitting on gentiles and thinking they're inherently inferior?

 

[Pedophobe]

I don't buy the "bad optics" thing. Israel always sends exactly the message it intends to send, because that is according to its principles.

 

[Yttrium]

Did anyone tell Null there's a Cardinal Pizza Ball? This might be the chance to convert him

Null is already doing Lent (foregoing caffeine). I assume he's already a believer, in part or in whole.

 

[Maori Kiwifruit Growers]

Bad example though because gun control is inherently something that's awful when you look at statistics, how do you account for some jews off the cuff under recordings

What? English man I don't know what you're asking.

and videos shitting on gentiles and thinking they're inherently inferior?

Very very very poor education. They also shit on other Jews , if I know who you're talking about (the black hat ones). This is a group of Jews who believe that because all they do is study all day. They are somehow spiritually better than everybody (despite the fact that the books they study claim that that's bullshit, and holding that belief is actually a sin and that they're not in a position to judge). This group is also very insular, and is afraid of literally there being another shoah. So they don't want to tell people what they're doing because they're afraid that I don't know. It might lead to some misunderstanding that would lead to people hating Jews more. Look, the only thing I can say is that unlike a lot of these other insular ethnic groups, this sect of Judaism doesn't really want to affect anyone else, just other Jews. So if you're not Jewish, they're really not an issue. They really do keep to themselves. They're like the Jewish version of Amish.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

The post-Vatican II RCC has no balls.

 

[AssignedEva]

I think this was one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing. Remember there are two types of police in Israel and especially in Jerusalem. You have the standard police which are just your police, and then you have similar to the French gendarmerie (Also known as the Israeli border Police). When I was in Jerusalem I saw that the border Police were in charge of protecting the holy sites. And generally, if you're in the border Police there's a good chance that you are drafted because the IDF is a draft army. One of the units you could be in is the border police. I can see a situation where they notified the police but then the border Police didn't find out and the border Police had the last word (because it's the army, One could assume they have better Intel). This could also be a case of a like 22-year-old Commander. Not really understanding what's going on. I wouldn't really prescribe malice, it's more likely this is stupidity. And I can promise you if it is malice someone's getting fired.

The Jerusalem Post has managed to get a statement out of Israeli police, and they're contradicting the Patriarch and saying that they'd always told him he wouldn't be allowed into the Church. I don't think the Patriarch would lie about this.
The chair of the Knesset's committee on Immigration, Absorption, and the Diaspora raised the salient point that the police in Jerusalem seem outright hostile to Christians, and the minister in charge of the police (Itamar Ben-Gvir, the "spitting on Christians is Jewish tradition" guy who's a Jewish supremacist) is cosy with Bentzi Gopstein. Bentzi Gopstein specifically said all churches in Israel should be burned (citing Maimonides), wants to ban Christmas and supports expelling all Christians from the Holy Land because he views them as "vampires".
I strongly suspect this is tit-for-tat. The Patriarch previously raised concerns that Jerusalem Police were shielding and emboldening Jewish attacks on Christians.

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

The yankie doodle protestard evangelitoids are clapping in tandem.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

The yankie doodle protestard evangelitoids are clapping in tandem.

They don't give a shit about Lebanese or Syrian Christians (Eastern or Western or Oriental rite), so no surprise there.