Israel’s blocking of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to conduct a service ignited a firestorm of outrage in the media, despite the fact that Israel had also prevented, without incident, services at Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall to protect civilians amid the war with Iran and Hezbollah. Pizzaballa later acknowledged, after fiercely criticizing Israel’s actions, that the issue had been calmly and respectfully resolved.

Initially, Pizzaballa’s office said this marked “the first time in centuries” that a Catholic prelate was turned away from the church on Palm Sunday. “This incident is a grave precedent and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world, who during this week, look to Jerusalem,” his office said in a statement.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found out what happened, he personally intervened to reinstate the Latin Patriarch’s ability to conduct services at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

“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,” he declared on X.

The prime minister explained the reason for the original action to turn Pizzaballa away.

“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,” he wrote. “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.”

“Today, out of special concern for his safety, Cardinal Pizzaballa was asked to refrain from holding mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” Netanyahu went on, but said he would make an exception for the patriarch. “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,” he said.

Pizzaballa later affirmed in an interview, “It is true that any type of meeting had been suspended in places without shelter.” He praised police for acting with “respect and calm,” acknowledging he had held an unauthorized “brief and small private ceremony.”

After expressing gratitude to President Isaac Herzog for intervening on the prelate’s behalf, the statement added the hope that, “appropriate arrangements will continue to be found, enabling prayer to take place in places of worship, particularly in the holy places of all religions,” as it was an issue of “profound importance to hundreds of millions of believers.”