Thousands of local and international Christian pilgrims thronged to Jerusalem's Old City and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the ancient Eastern rite ceremony of the Holy Fire April 15, with some scuffles reported as Israeli police restricted the number of people able to reach the church.

The priest-director of the Cultural Heritage Office for the Custodia Terrae Sanctae, or Custody of the Holy Land, in Jerusalem opened a drawer of vestments and casually dropped an unexpected historical tidbit about a clerical chasuble he was showing a group of foreign guests. The chasuble was part of a collection of vestments the archbishop of Paris wore for the marriage of Emperor Napoleon III of France with the Empress Eugenie, and which the empress later donated to the Church in the Holy Land.

One of Israel’s leading archeologists working on the Pilgrimage Road excavation near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount said that with so much new construction underway around the Holy City the rush is on to document and preserve the past before it’s too late.

JERUSALEM -- Walk down St. Peter Street from the Old City’s New Gate, past some shuttered shops and the closed Knight’s Palace hotel, continue down through the winding stone-paved alleyway of the Christian Quarter and soon you will hit “Santa Lane.”

JERUSALEM -- When the Israeli Ministry of Health asked St. Joseph's Hospital to set up a coronavirus unit, the hospital had it completed within a week.

JERUSALEM (CNA) -- Peace, mutual equality, and respect must be the foundation of progress in Israeli-Palestinian relations, despite continued setbacks, the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land said this week.

JERUSALEM - For four decades, Mousa Kamar has taken his place at the head of the heavy wooden cross used during the Franciscan Good Friday procession on the Via Dolorosa.

JERUSALEM – Visiting with Christian communities in northern Israel and the northern Palestinian Territories has helped bishops participating in the annual Holy Land Coordination see "the great need" to promote an understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, said Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor, Ireland.

VATICAN – The 30,000 members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem fund about 80 percent of the annual budget of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, ensuring that Catholic parishes and seminaries, schools and hospitals in Israel, Palestine and Jordan continue to function, said U.S. Cardinal Edwin F. O'Brien.

JERUSALEM – The controversial Israeli Nation State law must be repealed because non-Jews also are citizens of Israel, said the Catholic ordinaries of the Holy Land.

JERUSALEM – Already in a precarious state, Gaza's health system faces a medical emergency, with more than 1,000 people injured in the recent Gaza border demonstrations that flared up since March 30.

With at least 60 killed and over 2,700 injured, Canadian Catholics can’t just shrug and say the violence on the Israel-Gaza border is not their problem.

VATICAN – Warning that violence will never bring peace, Pope Francis urged all sides to do all they can to foster dialogue in the Middle East.

JERUSALEM – As the world witnesses "another outburst of hatred and violence, which is once again bleeding all over the Holy Land," the head of Jerusalem's Latin Patriarchate called for prayers for peace.

JERUSALEM – As the new United States embassy was inaugurated in Jerusalem May 14, violence broke out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers.