In a major pastoral letter, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, proposes an ambitious vision of the Holy City as the “mother of peoples” and the “mother of Churches.” Beyond the conflicts tearing apart the Holy Land, he outlines a theology of coexistence and universality meant to inspire the entire Church. Thérèse Andrevon, who lives in Israel and has dedicated her research to the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people since the Second Vatican Council, presents this reflection, which could have a lasting impact on Catholic thinking regarding Jerusalem and its mission.
An excerpt from the article by Thérèse Andrevon, to be published in issue 148/4 of October 2026 of the NRT.
The Nouvelles théologiques are free. But we need your help. Support the NRT by subscribing or by subscribing a loved one.
Take advantage of 30% off with the code PROMONRT-30 (print, 100% digital, or bi-media). Until 12/31/2026, for a first-time subscription, 1 year or 2 years. Subscribe
On April 25, 2026, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, published a pastoral letter entitled: “They returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” Proposal for Living the Vocation of the Church in the Holy Land1. Despite its modest description as a “letter,” this thirty-page document goes beyond the scope of the meditations he regularly offers. While it does indeed contain concrete guidelines, these are found at the end of the letter, following a masterful reflection on the vocation of Jerusalem and the local Church.
Faced with communities that are suffering, sometimes desperate, weary, and lacking spiritual guidance, as they live under the weight of daily hardships, the Patriarch, who has lived in Israel since 1993, offers a vision. The dominant metaphor is that of motherhood: Jerusalem is the “mother of all peoples,” the “heart of the world” (cf. Ps 87:5). As a mother, Jerusalem welcomes, comforts, and heals without excluding any of her children. Like a womb, she contains them all—“Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze, Samaritans, Baha’is, and people of every other faith. God has brought us together here” (p. 8).
I Jerusalem and Rome: Dynamics of Communion and Complementarity
In the columns of the blog Settimo Cielo, Professor Sergio Della Pergola delivered a scathing critique of the Patriarch’s pastoral letter, questioning the balance of power: “Reading this document, one gets the impression that Jerusalem is the most important place in the world for the Catholic faith, and one is justified in asking what Rome’s role is in that case2. ” Della Pergola implies that the Patriarch’s vision amounts to a utopia disconnected from reality, or even that it sets Jerusalem up as a rival to Rome. While one may dispute the entirety of his critique of Pizzaballa’s letter, the question regarding Rome’s role vis-à-vis Jerusalem deserves consideration. Cardinal Pizzaballa’s pastoral letter clearly describes the Church of Jerusalem as the “Mother Church” (p. 13), not only in the past but also today, according to a geography of salvation he evokes earlier (“what binds the whole world to this place transcends history, geography, and stones,” p. 12). Admittedly, this memory of Jerusalem as the cradle of the Church is not new, but its power of attraction was for a very long time limited to the “holy stones” of a historic city contested by empires. It is only recently, with the emergence of an awareness of the “living stones” of Jerusalem, that this dignity as Mother Church has taken on a different form in Christian consciousness. It is therefore appropriate to shed light on this relationship between Rome and Jerusalem.
Rome is not the “heart” of the Catholic Church in a foundational sense, nor is it a microcosm of the universal Church. Rome is not the Mother Church. It is the seat of the successor of Peter, and its centrality is at the service of universal communion and the strengthening of the faith: “And you, when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Lk 22:32). Rome and Jerusalem can be compared to Martha and Mary of Bethany (Lk 10:38–42). Rome acts in the manner of Martha, exercising stewardship and care for the global Catholic Church. Jerusalem, for its part, stands with Mary. Its mission is not universal governance but the witness to the ongoing descent of the Jerusalem from above into the human condition. It is the geographical and spiritual place that preserves the memory of salvation history.
Cardinal Pizzaballa conceives the relationship between the universal Church and Jerusalem as an exchange of gifts. From the Church of Rome and the nations, Jerusalem receives material support—a solidarity reminiscent of Paul’s collection for “the saints in Jerusalem” (1 Cor 16:1–4)—and the unceasing flow of pilgrims. In return, Jerusalem offers the rest of the ecclesial body the guardianship and liturgical vitality of the spiritual heritage and presents itself as a space for experimentation in ecumenical, Jewish-Christian, and interreligious dialogue.
The particular identity of the Church of Jerusalem, finally, opens a perspective for the quest for unity of the universal Church. By restoring theological visibility to the See of Jerusalem, the cardinal—it should be noted that he is the first Patriarch of Jerusalem to have been elevated to the rank of cardinal—implicitly invites us to move beyond the historical confrontation between the See of Rome and the Ecumenical See of Constantinople. Without succumbing to nostalgic anachronism, the emergence of the See of Jerusalem as a third ecclesial pole partially revives the structure of the pentarchy of the undivided Church3. The Mother Church serves as a timely reminder to Rome and Constantinople of the living source of their communion.
Title of the Letter to the Diocese on the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
II Toward a New Grammar of Jerusalem’s Internationality
The Patriarch’s vision embraces the Holy Land to reach out to the world. At the crossroads of civilizations, Jerusalem serves as a paradigm of contemporary global tensions, between tradition and modernity, universalism and particularism, liberal democracy and conservatism. Peace in this city has global repercussions, but it requires that its religious dimension be integrated into diplomatic efforts,
Ignoring this “vertical” dimension of our land—the religious and spiritual sensibilities of the communities that comprise it—Jewish, Muslim, and Christian—is the root cause of the failure of the successive coexistence agreements of recent decades. And future agreements will also be doomed to failure if we do not take into account the unique, prophetic character of Jerusalem. (p. 15)
In the face of critics who accuse him of having a utopian vision, the Patriarch asserts the right and duty to make his voice heard in the public sphere. He thus shifts the focus of the political debate, and his discourse seeks to reflect on the organization of the polis in the service of its inhabitants. In assessing the failures of the peace processes, he draws a distinction between political internationality and spiritual universality, thereby opening up a new approach to conceiving and building coexistence in Jerusalem.
Let us first recall the historical trajectory of the idea of the internationalization of the city of Jerusalem4. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 proposed granting the city the status of a corpus separatum. While the primary motive was the protection of the Holy Sites, this zone actually covered approximately 175 km²—including Bethlehem—and provided for full territorial governance: an international governor appointed by the UN, its own police force, an economic free zone, distinct citizenship, and an elected legislative council. At the time, the Holy See actively supported this option because it offered solid guarantees for access to the shrines. It also aligned with the Vatican’s reservations regarding the Zionist project: the claim to exercise Jewish sovereignty over the lands of Christendom was unacceptable. This international solution, however, never came to fruition due to successive armed conflicts. Later, the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel of December 30, 1993, brought about major diplomatic changes between the two partners. The Vatican nonetheless maintained its claim for an internationally guaranteed “special status” for the Holy Places.
While remaining faithful to Roman diplomacy—whose inapplicability to the present day he implicitly acknowledges—and defending the status quo of the holy sites of the three religions, Cardinal Pizzaballa highlights the limitations of the latter in the new post-October 7 context, for “the obsession with the occupation of spaces and with property has become one of the main criteria for interpreting relations between communities, often generating division and violence” (p. 17).
Jerusalem cannot be reduced to a collection of sanctuaries to be protected through a territorial division of sovereignties. To borrow another metaphor for Jerusalem found in Scripture and cited in Revelation: Jerusalem is a bride. One does not take a bride by force. Nor can she be dismembered, like the concubine in the grim episode of the Book of Judges (Judg 19–21). Ultimately, Jerusalem cannot be divided: what is shared is the life within her—for she is not anyone’s spoils but the heritage of all humanity.
Cardinal Pizzaballa also does not deny the importance of distinguishing identities, but they must be brought together in an organic and inclusive manner on a land that is a home for all. If the three monotheistic religions manage to share the space in Jerusalem by recognizing each other’s legitimacy, this will demonstrate that religion can serve as a cornerstone for peace.
The role of the international community must therefore not be to impose ready-made solutions to resolve a problem, but to legally guarantee Jerusalem’s universal mission based on the reality on the ground. To this end, diplomats must be aware that Jerusalem’s infrastructure must serve its spiritual superstructure, and not the other way around.
The Patriarch is therefore not advocating an abstract idea of peace. Its universality is rooted in the particular: the stones of the Old City, the faces of the faithful (Jews, Christians, Muslims), the layout of the streets, the concrete suffering of the inhabitants. And it is in the void left by the failure of law and politics that the Church carries out its specific mission. Through its schools, hospitals, and parishes, it patiently repairs the interreligious social fabric. Ultimately, it is the biblical theology of the “remnant” that the Patriarch offers as a sign of hope. The fragments of concrete humanity—and not the major international organizations that are in crisis—will be the true architects of reconstruction. “The collapse of the international system has, in this respect, at least the merit of having restored visibility and dignity to those who had never ceased to work on the ground” (p. 7). Internationality and universality could come together to rebuild the ruins of Jerusalem. This process will unfold over the long arc of history, but it is the only viable path. Cardinal Pizzaballa’s pastoral letter will go down in history.
-
1 Card. P. Pizzaballa, Pastoral Letter “They returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” Proposal for Living the Church’s Vocation in the Holy Land, Jerusalem, Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, April 25, 2026, forthcoming, available here. The page numbers indicated are those of the downloaded document.
-
2 S. Della Pergola, “The cardinal did not understand or does not want to understand,” on Sandro Magister’s blog Settimo Cielo, May 19, 2026. Della Pergola is professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is recognized as the most renowned demographer and statistician in the Jewish world. One can only be surprised by his response to the Patriarch, which falls short of an academic discourse and accuses the cardinal of promoting political opinions under the guise of theology, as pointed out to him by Alon Goshen Gottstein points out here.
-
3 It is true that, within this structure, the Church of Jerusalem had only held an honorary position, but in our own time, there is no reason to believe that it cannot play a more significant role.
-
4 Cities with international status existed under the auspices of the League of Nations for Danzig (1920–1939) and the UN for Trieste (1947–1954). These experiments ended in failure because these artificial regimes ignored the realities on the ground and became zones of geopolitical friction. Today, in major cities such as New York, Geneva, or Brussels, extraterritoriality is strictly limited to the buildings of international organizations.