As readers are by now well aware, on Palm Sunday, one of the holiest days of the liturgical year, Israeli authorities denied Cardinal Pizzaballa access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
A statement issued by The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem reported that “Israeli Police prevented” Cardinal Pizzaballa and Fr. Francesco Ielpo, OFM, “from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as they made their way to celebrate the Palm Sunday Mass.”
The statement also pointed out the clerics’ commitment to obedience, saying:
The Heads of the Churches have acted with full responsibility and, since the outset of the war, have complied with all imposed restrictions: public gatherings were cancelled, attendance was prohibited, and arrangements were 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.
Catholics worldwide expressed outrage that Pizzaballa was not allowed to enter the Church on Palm Sunday, with many (evidently not knowing any better) decrying the incident as an offense against religious liberty.
While regular readers of this space do know better, it is for the benefit of those who are confused that I write this article.
Before examining what took place within the context of authentic Catholic doctrine, one notes that Benjamin Netanyahu responded with a statement explaining that the Israeli police were acting out of concern for safety.
He went on to say, in part:
I have instructed the relevant authorities that Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch, be granted full and immediate access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem … I instructed the authorities to enable the Patriarch to hold services as he wishes.
Reactions on social media to Netanyahu’s statement on the part of so-called “Christian Zionists” (Catholics included) were as disturbing as they were predictable.
– Granting immediate access to Cardinal Pizzaballa … shows an attempt to balance safety concerns with religious freedom.
– Thank you for showing leadership and respect for religious freedom.
– Granting Cardinal Pizzaballa access shows commitment to safeguarding worshippers and respecting religious institutions.
– Ensuring that Cardinal Pizzaballa has full access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a vital move for religious freedom.
Mike Cuckabee, U.S. Ambassador for… I mean… to Israel, stated via his X account:
Kudos to @israelpolice for resolving misunderstanding regarding access to Church of Holy Sepulcher on Palm Sunday. There is equal access for ALL faiths & equal guidelines for safety.
As reported by Vatican News, subsequent to Netanyahu’s announcement, the Latin Patriarchate issued a follow-up statement that reads in part.
In agreement with the Israeli Police, access for representatives of the Churches has been secured in order to conduct the liturgies and ceremonies and to preserve the ancient Easter traditions at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Vatican News report continues:
The [Patriarchate’s] statement also says that “in light of the current state of war, existing restrictions on public gatherings remain in force.”
For this reason, the Churches will provide live streaming of liturgies and prayers, allowing the faithful in the Holy Land and throughout the world to participate spiritually.
Now, let’s look at the situation through a Catholic lens:
Compliance with all restrictions imposed by the civil authorities, forbidding the faithful to attend Mass, is not, as the Patriarchate’s statement maintains, a matter of “full responsibility” on the part of the Church’s sacred ministers.
Rather, it’s a pusillanimous act of capitulation that, in effect, treats Christ the King as just another subject of the secular madmen that rule the terrorist State of Israel.
Many magisterial texts could be cited, making plain that the Church is not subject to any civil power. Pope Leo XIII provides just one such example:
To wish the Church to be subject to the civil power in the exercise of her duty is a great folly and a sheer injustice. Whenever this is the case, order is disturbed, for things natural are put above things supernatural; the many benefits which the Church, if free to act, would confer on society are either prevented or at least lessened in number; and a way is prepared for enmities and contentions between the two powers… (Immortale Dei 33)
In the present case, the situation under discussion is not exclusively about enmity between a particular State and the Catholic Church, rather, it speaks directly to the enmity that exists between the ancient serpent and Our Blessed Lady, his seed and her seed. (cf Gen 3:15)
St. Paul described the hostility between the two as follows:
For you, brethren, are become followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they have from the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men; Prohibiting us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end. (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16)
What the world witnessed on Palm Sunday in Jerusalem was just one more example of the persecution that the self-identified Jewish leaders of the Synagogue of Satan have been heaping, and will continue to heap, upon the followers of Christ, just as they have from the very beginning.
In his magnificent Encyclical, Quas Primas, which instituted the Feast of Christ the King, Pope Pius XI, writing in 1925, more than two decades before the modern terrorist State of Israel was established, stated:
The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the State and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers.
Fast forward to today. The ignominy that was gradually spreading in 1925 has since blossomed into a global reality thanks in large part to the Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican Council II.
NOTE: Those who wish to learn more about the Second Vatican Council’s erroneous treatment of religious liberty may benefit from the following two-part podcast:
Vatican II Revisited: Dignitatis Humanae – Part 1
Vatican II Revisited: Dignitatis Humanae – Part 2
How so?
The Council insisted that all men have a right to religious freedom – as if the Wiccans and the Satanists have every bit as much of a God-given right to religious freedom as do the members of the Catholic Church – a proposition plainly and consistently condemned by the pre-conciliar popes.
On this note, the Council demands of the State:
This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right. (DH 2)
The Council then further specifies:
…the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence … even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it … the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed. (ibid.)
With all of this in mind, let’s consider once more what actually happened on Palm Sunday in Jerusalem:
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Fr. Francesco Ielpo weren’t so much persecuted by Israeli authorities as they were victimized by their own theology, namely, that of Vatican Council II, which concedes to the State the power to curtail the exercise of religious freedom whenever it determines that doing so is expedient for the sake of “public order.”
Is the modern terrorist State of Israel a diabolical construct of the Synagogue of Satan, the mortal enemy of the one true Church of Christ and her faithful?
Absolutely, but let’s be clear about the fact that the conciliar church voluntarily placed itself, its clerics, and its faithful, under the power of the State.
The Holy Roman Catholic Church, by contrast, could never do such a thing, either voluntarily or otherwise, insofar as such an action is utterly incompatible with her identity as Our Lord’s Mystical Body, with Christ the King of kings as her Head.
