Israeli police prevent Catholic leaders from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass at Jerusalem church

The Is­raeli po­lice pre­vent­ed Catholic lead­ers from en­ter­ing the Church of the Holy Sepul­chre to cel­e­brate Mass on the Chris­t­ian hol­i­day of Palm Sun­day for the first time in cen­turies, the Latin Pa­tri­ar­chate said Sun­day.

Jerusalem’s ma­jor holy sites are closed be­cause of the on­go­ing Iran war, in­clud­ing the church, as the city has come un­der fre­quent fire from Iran­ian mis­siles.

The Catholic Church called the po­lice de­ci­sion “a man­i­fest­ly un­rea­son­able and gross­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate mea­sure.” It pre­vent­ed two of the church’s top re­li­gious lead­ers, in­clud­ing Car­di­nal Pier­bat­tista Piz­z­a­bal­la and the head of the Cus­tos in the Holy Land, from cel­e­brat­ing Palm Sun­day at the place where Chris­tians be­lieve Je­sus was cru­ci­fied.

Palm Sun­day com­mem­o­rates Je­sus’ tri­umphant en­try in­to Jerusalem and launch­es the Holy Week com­mem­o­ra­tions for Chris­tians who fol­low the Latin cal­en­dar, which cul­mi­nates in East­er next Sun­day.

The Is­raeli po­lice said it had no­ti­fied the Catholic Church on Sat­ur­day that no Mass could take place on Palm Sun­day be­cause of safe­ty con­sid­er­a­tions, the lack of ac­cess for emer­gency ve­hi­cles in nar­row al­leys of the Old City and lack of ad­e­quate shel­ter.

How­ev­er, the Latin Pa­tri­ar­chate said the Church of the Holy Sepul­chre has been host­ing Mass­es that aren’t open to the pub­lic since the Iran war be­gan on Feb. 28, and it was un­clear why Sun­day’s Mass and ac­cess by the two priests was any dif­fer­ent.

“It’s a very, very sa­cred day for Chris­tians and in our opin­ion, there was no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for such a de­ci­sion or such an ac­tion,” said Farid Jubran, the spokesper­son for the Latin Pa­tri­ar­chate of Jerusalem.

Jubran said that the church had re­quest­ed per­mis­sion from the po­lice for a few re­li­gious lead­ers to en­ter the church for a pri­vate Mass on Sun­day — not one that was open to the pub­lic. The Pa­tri­ar­chate said that the de­ci­sion im­ped­ed free­dom of wor­ship and the sta­tus quo in Jerusalem.

The tra­di­tion­al Palm Sun­day pro­ces­sion nor­mal­ly sees tens of thou­sands of Chris­tians from around the world walk from the Mount of Olives down the nar­row, hilly streets to­ward the Old City, wav­ing palm fronds and singing.

The Pa­tri­ar­chate can­celled the tra­di­tion­al pro­ces­sion­al last week be­cause of safe­ty con­cerns and has held Mass­es lim­it­ed to few­er than 50 wor­ship­pers in com­pli­ance with the Is­raeli mil­i­tary’s guide­lines for civil­ians.

Piz­z­a­bal­la cel­e­brat­ed Mass in the near­by St. Sav­ior’s Monastery, a soar­ing mar­ble church which is lo­cat­ed next to an un­der­ground mu­sic school that the Is­raeli mil­i­tary has deemed a safe shel­ter space. Lat­er on Sun­day, Piz­z­a­bal­la held a prayer for peace at the Domi­nus Fle­vit Shrine on the Mount of Olives, but kept his homi­ly con­cen­trat­ed on Je­sus and didn’t men­tion the morn­ing’s in­ci­dent.

Pope Leo XIV, at the end of Palm Sun­day Mass in St. Pe­ter’s Square, prayed for all Chris­tians in the Mid­dle East who he said were liv­ing through an “atro­cious” con­flict. He said that “in many cas­es, they can­not live ful­ly the rites of these holy days,” though he didn’t elab­o­rate.

The Vat­i­can spokesman didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond when asked to com­ment on the Jerusalem in­ci­dent.

Italy con­demns de­ci­sion

Italy for­mal­ly protest­ed the in­ci­dent to Is­raeli au­thor­i­ties. Pre­mier Gior­gia Mel­oni said that the po­lice ac­tion “con­sti­tutes an of­fense not on­ly against be­liev­ers but against every com­mu­ni­ty that rec­og­nizes re­li­gious free­dom.”

“The Church of the Holy Sepul­chre in Jerusalem is a sa­cred site of Chris­tian­i­ty, and as such must be pre­served and pro­tect­ed for the cel­e­bra­tion of sa­cred rites,” Mel­oni said. “Pre­vent­ing the Pa­tri­arch of Jerusalem and the Cus­tos of the Holy Land from en­ter­ing, es­pe­cial­ly on a solem­ni­ty cen­tral to the faith such as Palm Sun­day, con­sti­tutes an of­fense not on­ly against be­liev­ers but against every com­mu­ni­ty that rec­og­nizes re­li­gious free­dom.”

Mel­oni’s con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment tried to keep a bal­anced po­si­tion with Is­rael dur­ing the war in Gaza, sup­port­ing Is­rael’s right to de­fense but con­demn­ing the toll on Pales­tini­ans.

The Ital­ian leader has al­so said that Italy won’t par­tic­i­pate in the Iran war, while af­firm­ing that the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic can’t be al­lowed to pos­sess nu­clear weapons.

For­eign Min­is­ter An­to­nio Ta­jani in­struct­ed Italy’s am­bas­sador to Is­rael to con­vey the protest “and to reaf­firm Italy’s com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing re­li­gious free­dom at all times and un­der all cir­cum­stances.”

In ad­di­tion, Ta­jani sum­moned the Is­raeli am­bas­sador to Italy for talks on Mon­day at the Ital­ian For­eign Min­istry to seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion about the de­ci­sion.

Is­raeli leader ex­plains clo­sure

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu said on Sun­day evening that there was no “ma­li­cious in­tent” and that the car­di­nal was pre­vent­ed from ac­cess­ing the church be­cause of safe­ty con­cerns, but that Is­rael would try to par­tial­ly open the Church of the Holy Sepul­chre in the com­ing days.

“Giv­en the ho­li­ness of the week lead­ing up to East­er for the world’s Chris­tians, Is­rael’s se­cu­ri­ty arms are putting to­geth­er a plan to en­able church lead­ers to wor­ship at the holy site in the com­ing days,” Ne­tanyahu wrote on X.

The West­ern Wall, the holi­est site where Jews can pray, is al­so most­ly closed be­cause of safe­ty is­sues, but au­thor­i­ties are let­ting up to 50 peo­ple at a time pray in an en­closed area ad­ja­cent to the plaza.

Small­er church­es, syn­a­gogues, and mosques are open in Jerusalem’s Old City if they are lo­cat­ed with­in a cer­tain dis­tance of a bomb shel­ter deemed ac­cept­able by Is­rael’s mil­i­tary and, if gath­er­ings are kept un­der 50 peo­ple. —TEL AVIV, Is­rael (AP)

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Sto­ry by MELANIE LID­MAN and NICOLE WIN­FIELD | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Nicole Win­field re­port­ed from Rome.