On Sunday morning, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa was stopped by Israeli police officers as he led a small entourage from his residence at the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem’s Old City to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a seven-minute walk away.
Accompanied by Father Francesco Ielpo, the church official responsible for overseeing Catholic religious sites in the Holy Land, Pizzaballa was on his way to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass at the magnificently domed church, revered by Christians as the traditional site of Jesus’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. The Mass is part of a tradition stretching back at least 1,700 years, but upon his arrival, Pizzaballa was informed that he could not enter the site due to wartime safety restrictions put in place in response to the threat of Iranian missiles.
Israel Defense Forces Home Front Command directives currently limit gatherings to 50 people and require that a concrete bomb shelter be easily accessible in the event of a missile siren. There is no fortified shelter in the ancient church complex, and it—along with the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, sacred to Jews and Muslims—has been closed to worshippers since the start of the war.