‘Constitutes a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure’
By Thomas Wong, Daily Caller News Foundation
Israeli police prevented a Catholic Cardinal from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass at the church traditionally believed to have been built over the burial tomb of Jesus Christ, adding a new dynamic to the ongoing tensions in the Middle East.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, was traveling with the official guardian of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Fr. Francesco Ielpo, OFM, when they “were stopped en route, while proceeding privately and without any characteristics of a procession or ceremonial act,” according to an official statement.
“As a result, and 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 added.