Cardinal Pizzaballa clarifies the incident at the Holy Sepulcher: 'There were misunderstandings'

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, clarified the situation that arose after Israeli police reportedly prevented him from accessing the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass. He maintained that it was a situation that "had never happened."

"The Police had said that the orders of the internal command prohibited any kind of gathering in places without shelter, but we had not asked for anything public, just a brief and small private ceremony to preserve the idea of a celebration in the Holy Sepulcher," Pizzaballa noted in a statement to TV 2000.

In that sense, Pizzaballa explained that "there were misunderstandings, we didn't understand each other."

"Everything was developed with a lot of courtesy. I don't want to force things; we want to take advantage of this situation to better clarify in the coming days what to do, respecting everyone's security, but also the right to prayer."

Meanwhile, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured that he instructed the relevant authorities to grant Cardinal Pizzaballa full and immediate access to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

"Over the past several days, Iran has repeatedly targeted the holy sites of all three monotheistic religions in Jerusalem with ballistic missiles. In one strike, missile fragments crashed meters from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," the prime minister maintained.

"To protect worshippers, Israel asked members of all faiths to temporarily abstain from worshipping at the Christian, Muslim and Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City," he added.

Despite the security threats, the prime minister stressed that "Even though I understand this concern, as soon as I learned about the incident with Cardinal Pizzaballa, I instructed the authorities to enable the Patriarch to hold services as he wishes."