If Pierbattista Pizzaballa is ultimately successful, he would be the first modern Pope to have spent so much of his life in Palestine, observing the situation from ground level.
“Israel” chose not to send a high-level delegation to the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, April 21. Prime Minister and ICJ-fugitive Netanyahu clearly had no love for the late Bishop of Rome who relentlessly condemned his genocidal offensives throughout the region and made a point of speaking daily to Palestinians trapped in Gaza’s oldest church, right up until his death on Easter Monday.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, however, did go to Rome, possibly never to return with that title. Pierbattista Pizzaballa was made a cardinal just days before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, but his high-profile diplomacy and distance from Vatican politics make him a serious contender to sit on Saint Peter’s throne.
The office of the Latin Patriarch was established in the late eleventh century, after the First Crusade ended in the Frankish conquest and sacking of Jerusalem, with tens of thousands of its inhabitants slaughtered. While the Patriarch was subordinate to the ruler of the newly established “Kingdom of Jerusalem” and the other Frankish Crusader states in the region, he was the direct representative of the Pope in Rome, whose spiritual (and notionally secular) authority overruled that of all Catholic monarchs.
With the final defeat of the Crusader states in the late thirteenth century, the Latin Patriarchate was relocated to Cyprus. The office then went into a long period of dormancy during which it was a mostly honorific title held by the Pope. During this long interlude, the Holy See bestowed responsibility for maintaining the Christian holy places on the Franciscan Order, whose head friars were styled ‘Custodian of the Holy Land.’
In the mid-19th century, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem was reestablished in Palestine as an episcopal see, with the permission of the Ottoman Sultan. (more...)
No comments:
Post a Comment