PALM SUNDAY IN JERUSALEM Something happened this morning in Jerusalem that I cannot let pass without comment. On the day Christians worldwide call Palm Sunday—the opening of the most sacred week of the liturgical year—Israeli national police stopped Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Let me be precise about what this means. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands on the ground of the Crucifixion, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the most sacred site in Christendom. And the Latin Patriarch, the highest Catholic authority in the Holy Land, was turned away at its door. Not at the head of a crowd. He was not leading a procession. He and three priests, a private delegation, were well within every restriction Israel’s Home Front Command established for public gatherings. “For the first time in centuries,” the Christian Patriarchs of Jerusalem declared today in a joint statement, “the Heads of the Church were prevented from celebrating the Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.” For the first time in centuries. I believe in Israel’s right to security. I believe in the legitimacy of sovereign nations to make prudential decisions about public order, especially in wartime. And I want to be very clear: the security challenges Israel faces are real, and the Christian community is not indifferent to them. But this is precisely where a distinction must be made: one that the Christian Patriarchs themselves articulated with precision, and that even the United States Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, did not hesitate to make publicly. Ambassador Huckabee, who is by any measure a friend of Israel, called today’s decision “an unfortunate overreach” that is “difficult to understand or justify.” He noted what the joint statement also made clear: the Home Front Command’s own guidelines restrict gatherings to 50 people or fewer. The Patriarch’s delegation numbered four. Four people. Private. Without ceremony. Below every threshold.

The Israeli government’s stated explanation (that the Patriarch was barred for his own personal safety) does not hold up under scrutiny. Churches, synagogues, and mosques throughout Jerusalem have operated within the 50-person restriction without incident. The Patriarch and the Custos of the Holy Land, by their own account, have complied with every wartime restriction since the conflict began. They canceled public gatherings, banned attendance, arranged broadcasts for the hundreds of millions of faithful worldwide who look to Jerusalem this week. What was denied today was a pastor entering a church with an agreement to livestream the Mass precisely due to the imposed restrictions, not a crowd attempting to flaunt security measures. The joint statement, signed not by one tradition but by the full community of Christian Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem—representing Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian faithful alike—called the decision “a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure” and “an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship, and respect for the Status Quo.”  Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of Israel’s closest European allies, called it “an offense not only to the faithful but to any community that respects religious freedom” and summoned Israel’s Ambassador to Italy. French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the action and affirmed that worship must be guaranteed in Jerusalem for all religions. These are not Israel’s critics speaking. These are Israel’s friends. I want to say something directly to the government of Israel, and I ask that it be received in the spirit it is offered, namely as honest counsel from people who genuinely want Israel to succeed and who understand what is at stake in the Christian world this week. The goodwill of the Christian community toward Israel is not automatic. It is earned, and it is fragile. It rests, in significant part, on the conviction that Jerusalem’s holy places are protected and accessible; that Israel is not an adversary of the faith traditions that call Jerusalem sacred. When the Latin Patriarch of the Holy Land is turned away from the Tomb of Christ on Palm Sunday, something breaks. It breaks in the hearts of believers across every Christian tradition. And it breaks in the moral imagination of the many Christians who have been willing, in the face of enormous cultural pressure, to stand with Israel and against antisemitism. Pope Leo has said clearly that the Catholic Church does not tolerate antisemitism, and that to combat it is a demand of the Gospel itself. I hold that position without reservation. But there is a pastoral reality that Israel’s government would do well to weigh. The people most willing to answer that call, the faithful who have followed their Church’s teaching in defending the Jewish people, are the very same people watching their Patriarchs barred from the most sacred site in their faith at the start of the most sacred week of their year. The decision made today does not serve the cause of those still willing to stand. It makes their witness harder to sustain, and gifts easy ammunition to those who have long sought to portray Israel as hostile to Christian and Muslim worship alike. In short, this was a grave and unnecessary wound to inflict on so many who still are counted among Israel’s friends. President Isaac Herzog has stated that the State of Israel holds an “unwavering commitment to freedom of religion for all faiths and to upholding the status quo at the holy sites of Jerusalem.” We receive that statement with respect and with a precise understanding of what it now requires. For more than a billion Christians entering the most sacred days of their calendar, there is one way—and only one—to give those words their substance. The government of Israel must guarantee the Patriarch the full, free, and uninterrupted celebration of the Holy Triduum, the sacred three days, from the evening of Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday, which form the irreducible heart of Christian worship. The Patriarchs have never asked for special treatment or exemption from reasonable security measures. They are asking for something far more basic: that religious freedom be upheld in a way that is plainly achievable and fully consistent with two thousand years of continuous Christian worship—something the State of Israel is entirely capable of guaranteeing, even under present threats. And so we pray. We pray for Jerusalem, for the Holy Land, for the peace that surpasses all understanding to reign in our hearts and in this world. Finally, we beseech the King of Kings whose sacred feet sanctified the steps to Calvary and whose sepulchre—site of his Crucifixion, Burial, and Resurrection—is the ground of all hope that we may not be silent in the face of persecution but say with even the very stones of Jerusalem: all praise to Jesus Christ now and forever. Go forward bravely,

Kelsey ReinhardtPresident & CEOCatholicVote

Many heresies begin not with outright rejection, but with an overemphasis of one truth at the expense of another. For instance: Jesus is God. Jesus is man. He is both — fully divine and fully human. To over-emphasize one at the expense of the other is to stray from the truth. So, too, in the immigration debate: we must hold together the inviolable dignity of the migrant with the legitimate right of the nation to secure its borders. I hear, justly so, a robust defense of the first principle. The second, however, is too often ignored. Why? There are numerous prudential questions that fold into the second principle. What constitutes order? How many migrants are sustainable? What level of assimilation is required for social cohesion? These are difficult questions to ask, let alone answer. Our current debate also seems to start with an assumption that every migrant is a vulnerable person fleeing oppression. And likewise, Western societies must accept them all — no questions asked.  But here in my hometown of Denver, the criminal Tren de Aragua gang has ruined the lives of the poorest citizens and migrants in the shadows. They quickly came in and began trafficking in sex, human labor, drugs, weapons, and offered hit men at a low price.Which brings us to Catholic teaching on migration. A faithful Catholic approach to immigration begins not with politics but with people — with the conviction that every migrant bears the face of Christ. Pope Leo’s reminder that “the Church has always recognized in migrants a living presence of the Lord” strikes directly at the heart of our moral duty. We stand entirely with him. Compassion, hospitality, and solidarity with the poor are not optional virtues; they are at the center of the Gospel. Yet, Catholic teaching also holds that charity is never opposed to order. The Catechism is explicit: nations have the right — and rulers the duty — to regulate their borders prudently for the sake of the common good. Welcoming the stranger and safeguarding one’s own citizens are not contradictory; they are complementary duties rooted in justice. We cannot pretend that previous administrations upheld the common good through their immigration policies. Failure to secure the border, to enforce laws, or to ensure safe and legal processes is not mercy — it is neglect. A truly Catholic vision demands more: a system that protects the vulnerable, honors the law, and preserves the moral fabric of the nation. And this is why what occurred outside an ICE facility in suburban Chicago on Saturday can be criticized as politicization of the Blessed Sacrament. A priest chose to lead a Eucharistic procession flanked by activists in bright yellow vests toward a federal office, arriving on a weekend when no officials would even be present, only to lament to the cameras that “no ICE or Federal representatives were there.”  Any Catholic with a beating heart recognizes the moral call to bring Christ to the suffering, including migrants and the imprisoned. The Church has a duty to ensure access to Confession and Holy Communion for detainees; that is non-negotiable.  But that sacred mission is often accomplished through fidelity, order, and perseverance, as the Bishops of Florida have shown in securing sacramental access for detainees through established channels, without spectacle, without turning the Eucharist into a gesture of protest. How do I know this? Because my team assisted the bishops with their requests to get the sacraments into “Alligator Alcatraz.” And we would happily do so for the detainees at the Broadview, Illinois, ICE detention center.  I want Jesus to be brought to every person. Bring him to the prisons!  Just this weekend the Most Reverend Michael Olson, Bishop of Fort Worth (TX),  baptized and confirmed seven women incarcerated at FMC Carswell Fort Worth — in person and without fanfare. That’s a model for us. The Holy Eucharist is not a political symbol, but the Body and Blood of Christ. Its reception must be preceded by catechesis, repentance, and spiritual readiness — especially in situations of incarceration, where pastoral accompaniment is essential. I want the people in that ICE Detention Center — and every such facility — to have Jesus. I also know, however, that this nation has a moral duty to uphold its laws for the sake of the common good. For this reason, we should not demonize the officials upholding that principle of the immigration stance of our Church. May we work toward a society where justice and mercy walk hand in hand — where the vulnerable are protected, the dangerous restrained, and every soul given the chance to encounter the transforming love of Christ. That is the truly Catholic response to immigration: not fear, not theater — but truth, charity and hope. And a healthy tension between the two truths of immigration. Go forward bravely,Kelsey ReinhardtPresident, CatholicVote