I. Introduction
It is well known that the period of British Mandate in Palestine was central in the formation of the modern Middle East, with a profound influence on subsequent events. It was during that period that the Zionist movement became a real political force, developing its pre-state organization. It also saw a rise in Arab nationalism, partly as a response to the growth of Zionism but also as an independent dynamic. At the same time, British administration and Jewish immigration brought about significant industrial and agricultural modernization of the region, profoundly changing the socio-economic structure and ethnic mix of its population. At the beginning of the 1920s, from the British perspective, Palestine was considered a relatively quiet and peaceful corner of the Empire. Fifteen years on, it had become a thorn in the side of the British administration, torn apart by interethnic conflict.
From a Catholic point of view, the period was beset with several challenges, primarily due to the emergence of new adversaries and the reemergence of older ones: the Greek Orthodox presence, now backed by the British government after the collapse of imperial Russia; Protestant proselytism, reinforced by its links to the Mandatory government and by the growth in influence of the American missionary societies; and the Zionist movement and its drive to achieve Jewish sovereignty over the region or part thereof.Footnote 1 As a result, the Catholic Church was forced to reorganize its local structure and hierarchy in order to face the new political situation and equip itself with a modern approach on how to conduct its missionary activities in the local communities.
From any standpoint, 1929 was a crucial year. The massacres in August marked a sudden worsening of the political situation in the region, intensifying the clash between Arab-Palestinian nationalism and Zionism and heralding the start of a most difficult decade, during which the British authorities had to face ever-increasing tensions.Footnote 2 From a Catholic perspective, however, the turning point which the events of August 1929 represented can only be fully understood by considering the profound reorganization of Catholic institutions the creation of the Apostolic Delegation in Jerusalem brought about between February and March.Footnote 3 Unlike the Apostolic Nunciature—a Vatican embassy in foreign countries that have official relations with the Holy See—an Apostolic Delegation does not generally play a proper diplomatic role.Footnote 4 Despite this, it is easy to understand how this institution also played a collateral political role in a chaotic situation, such as the Palestinian one of the 1930s.
The establishment of the Apostolic Delegation in Jerusalem had important consequences on the Vatican policy in the region and even on the Catholic perception of the Middle Eastern issue. For the first time, the Holy See found itself with direct and permanent representation in the Holy Land. Hitherto, it had been obliged to go either through the offices of the main Catholic institutions present there—the Custody of the Holy Land and the Latin patriarchate—or temporary envoys, sometimes seeking the protection of consulates of the Catholic nations.Footnote 5
From the establishment of the Apostolic Delegation through the mid-1930s, the attitude of the Holy See and the local Catholic authorities toward some aspects of the Palestine question changed markedly. Hostility toward Zionism remained unmodified and would become one of the enduring features of Catholic policy for the region. Perceptions about the Arab-Palestinian Nationalist movement, however, which had hitherto been regarded favorably by Palestinian Catholics and the church authorities themselves, changed significantly.Footnote 6 Likewise, on the Vatican side there was a complete rethink about the role of the British in Palestine. The continual arguments gave ground to a growing appreciation for the Mandatory administration, a development which emerges clearly when considering the attitude of the Holy See to the presentation of the Peel Plan in July 1937. Faced with the hypothesis of an imminent partition of Palestine, which would have divided the Christian Holy Land between two non-Christian States, the Secretariat of State showed that it regarded the continuation of the British Mandate as the best guarantee for Catholic interests in the region.Footnote 7
In light of these developments, the questions this paper seeks to answer concern the role of the Apostolic Delegation in Palestine, Cyprus, and Transjordan. The following pages will inquire if its establishment contributed significantly in influencing the new attitude of the Holy See toward the Palestinian situation or if the establishment of the new delegation was the first manifestation of a change in the policy previously adopted by the Vatican.
Parallel to these “political” questions were others concerning the relationship between the Catholic institutions in Palestine and the Vatican congregations they answered to. These focused on the fractious dialogue which persisted in the Middle East, particularly in Palestine, between the Latin Catholic institutions—led by the Congregation of Propaganda Fide—and those of the Eastern Catholic Churches—coordinated by the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, established in 1917. But what was the significance of the creation of the Apostolic Delegation for these interactions? And how did this influence the relations between the various elements of the well-established but fragmented Catholic minority in Palestine?
II. The Catholic Church and Palestine in the Early 1920s: Institutional Questions and Political Problems
To answer these questions, it is necessary to take a step back and trace how the Catholic presence in the Holy Land had reorganized itself in the period immediately after World War I through the 1920s. The conquest of Jerusalem by the Allies was greeted with joy by the international Catholic community as well as church institutions in the Holy Land.Footnote 8 The latter in particular welcomed this “liberation” from Ottoman domination, as this had become especially repressive for Christians during the war years.Footnote 9 Catholics had had to endure the deportation of the Latin patriarch, Filippo Camassei, to Nazareth, while the Custody, deprived of effective leadership and subject to the restrictions of the Ottoman military government, had lost most of its capacity for action.Footnote 10 Added to these difficulties was the structural problem posed by the fragmented nature of the Catholic presence in the Holy Land, divided as it was into the Latin rite (predominant in Jerusalem) and five different Eastern rites: Coptic, Armenian, Syriac (each of these three being limited to just a few dozen believers), Maronite, and Greek Catholic or Melkite (rooted in Galilee).Footnote 11
The reorganization of the Catholic Church's presence in Palestine began immediately after the liberation of Jerusalem, while the war was still being fought. In 1917, the new custos of the Holy LandFootnote 12 was nominated, Ferdinando Diotallevi, and a few months later, in August 1918, Monsignor Luigi Barlassina reached Jerusalem to take office as the deputy for the old and prostrate patriarch, Camassei.Footnote 13 The appointments of Diotallevi and Barlassina heralded the return of a competitive climate in the Holy Land between the two main Latin Catholic institutions in the region: the Custody of the Holy Land and the Latin patriarchate.
Relations between the two offices had been stormy ever since the reestablishment of the patriarchate in 1847.Footnote 14 During the first fifteen years of the twentieth century, the situation had improved, and an equilibrium had been found. The early post-war years, however, saw tensions return, and these were to become more acute when Barlassina was appointed patriarch in March 1920.Footnote 15 This situation arose out of the uncertainty about which responsibilities fell to the Custody—present for centuries in the Holy Land to preserve the sanctuaries and jealous of its ancient prerogative—and which to the patriarchate. The latter was a younger institution, created in the nineteenth century to counter growing Protestant activity, and had the canonic status of a normal diocese.Footnote 16 Indeed, the patriarchate, despite being theoretically responsible for all Latin Catholics in Palestine, struggled to establish its primary role, which was obscured by the traditional importance of the Franciscans in that region.
To understand the difficulties that beset the Catholic Church in Palestine, alongside these ancient rivalries must be considered the rapidly changing geopolitical and ecclesiastical realities in the region. First and foremost, the war had left the Catholic institutions in Palestine in a state of disorder, not least because of the difficulties in communicating with Europe. Things did not improve after the war ended. The preponderance of a power such as Great Britain, considered anti-Catholic—notwithstanding the good formal relations held with the Holy See—raised fears of reviving Protestant proselytism in the region. Lastly, of even greater concern was the growth of Zionism, which seemed to enjoy full British support after the Balfour declaration.Footnote 17
The Custody and the patriarchate took differing views of these factors. Patriarch Barlassina, despite his profound skepticism regarding Christian-Muslim relations, saw himself as a local actor and the only legitimate representative of the Arab-Catholic population in Palestine. He used harsh tones to talk about the growing Jewish influence, which he accused of being responsible for the decline in public morals and the spreading of materialistic lifestyles. At the same time, he was highly critical toward the British administration, which he suspected of harboring anti-Catholic prejudices.Footnote 18 This political activism would lead Barlassina to look on the activities of Islamic-Christian associations with sympathy. These had been formed at the end of 1918 on a nationalist, anti-Zionist platform.Footnote 19 At the same time, he tried on various occasions to limit the role traditionally played by the Catholic foreign powers, such as France and Italy, in the politics of the region, presenting the patriarchate as the only representative of Catholic interests in the Holy Land.Footnote 20
Diotallevi's position was different: while sharing the fear that the British predominance could turn out as advantageous for the Protestants and the Orthodox, the custos tried to develop good relations with the British authorities. Moreover, he did not share the fear of Zionism that was spreading in some Catholic quarters, regarding it as a scare tactic used by the British and one that was destined to exhaust itself once the area had been pacified. Compared to Barlassina, Diotallevi displayed more appreciation for the traditional role played by the Catholic powers, and he did not hide a complete skepticism about Arab nationalism.Footnote 21
One of the aspects that makes it interesting to analyze the counter-positioning between patriarchate and Custody is the fact that this inserted itself into the general politics of the Vatican. Immediately after the end of World War I, the Holy See conducted a general reevaluation of the role of native clerics and episcopates in the “mission lands.” This policy, which became clear during Pius XI's papacy, was first revealed by Benedict XV's apostolic letter, Maximud Illud, in November 1919. There were various factors behind this, but a significant role was played by the perception of the negative effects of mixing politics and religion and by the desire to reduce these in a missionary context, where they were particularly marked. As a result, fixing the church at the local level seemed the only way to avoid the complete identification of Catholicism with colonial power, a situation which appeared dangerous in an age when colonized peoples were starting to claim their independence.Footnote 22
In the context of the Middle East, such developments would have led to a progressive reevaluation of Eastern Catholic rites and in particular the Melkites, which were more closely identifiable with the Arab nation.Footnote 23 In the period immediately following the war, however, the desire to hinge things on the local church in the mission lands led to a significant strengthening of the Latin patriarchate. Being able to call on both European and Arab personnel made this institution better suited to represent Palestine Catholicism than the religious orders, of whom the Salesians and Franciscans were supported by the Italians and the Assumptionists, Dominicans, and White Fathers by the French.
The general situation and the personal assessments of Cardinal Willem Van Rossum, head of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, which was responsible for the Latin institutions in Palestine, put Barlassina in a strong position, consolidated and defined in the modus vivendi of June 1920.Footnote 24 This document illustrated in detail the relationship between patriarchate and Custody, attributing a coordination role to the patriarch in the protection of the sanctuaries and indicating it as the Holy See's representative in the region.Footnote 25
The preeminence established by Barlassina in 1920 was immediately challenged, primarily by the Custody, the main loser in the redefinition of the power struggle, but also by the Greek Catholic episcopate and clergy as well as some Latin Arab priests who wanted the replacement of the Latin patriarchate in Jerusalem by an Arab one.Footnote 26 This opposition did not manage to stop Barlassina from having considerable influence in the early 1920s, contributing to his steering of Vatican policy in the Middle East. The patriarch sent very frequent reports to the secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, painting an alarming picture of conditions in the region, being subject to unjust British rule and threatened by the growing Jewish presence.Footnote 27
In a period marked by much tension between the Holy See, Zionism, and the British administration, Barlassina's activism must not have appeared excessive to the Vatican. In 1922, the first year of Pius XI's papacy and a climactic moment in the Catholic-Zionist struggle, the patriarch went on official missions to Rome and Britain, during which he denounced the difficult conditions facing Catholics in the Holy Land.Footnote 28
The situation began to change gradually after that. Following ratification of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1922, Catholic opposition to Zionism and to the British lost much of its urgency. A clue to this is that, starting in 1926, Zionist observers, who in the early 1920s had indicated the Holy See as one of the most hostile power centers to their cause, noted that Vatican diplomatic opposition was decreasing significantly.Footnote 29 Moreover, with the prospect of the British being in power in Palestine for a long time, it became necessary to establish positive contacts with the Mandatory administration, a role that Barlassina was clearly unfit for, as was shown by the numerous British protests that reached the Vatican.Footnote 30
Additionally, despite the patriarch's efforts, the situation of the Jerusalem diocese was unsatisfactory, even when just considering the religious aspect. The modus vivendi of 1920 had generated even greater hostility between the patriarchate and the Custody, which believed itself to have been defrauded of its traditional function as guardian of the sanctuaries and found no help from Barlassina's actions. The relations of the patriarch with the powerful French religious orders, who had at first been favorable toward him, had deteriorated rapidly, and those with the Greek Catholics remained as tenuous as ever. In this situation, while in Jerusalem and European capitals rumors circulated about the patriarch possibly being transferred, the Vatican decided to put the brakes on Barlassina's “political” activism.
During 1923, the decisions taken in June 1920 were rectified, and the Custody got back many of its traditional prerogatives in a move that left the patriarchate frustrated.Footnote 31 Lastly, in 1924, crowning a long diplomatic exchange between the Vatican Secretariat of State and the British Foreign Office, the English priest Monsignor Godric Kean was nominated as deputy to the patriarch.Footnote 32 This choice did not entirely satisfy the British, who would have preferred the nomination of the Irish Franciscan Pascal Robinson.Footnote 33 Barlassina, for his part, staunchly opposed the appointment, which he believed would be just the first step in appeasement to British interests in the region and therefore also to Zionism.Footnote 34
III. Father Robinson's Pastoral Visits: Toward the Establishment of the Apostolic Delegation
Notwithstanding the changes made over 1923–1924, the uncertainty about ecclesiastical jurisdictions reemerged clamorously in June 1924. It happened during the visit of the Italian Cardinal Oreste Giorgi, who was in the Holy Land to oversee the consecration of the Franciscan basilicas on Mount Tabor and in Gethsemane. When he arrived in Haifa and during the celebrations, there were incidents regarding protocol between Barlassina and Monsignor Frediano Giannini, apostolic delegate in Beirut and former custos of the Holy Land, because both believed they were entitled to the place of honor immediately behind the cardinal. This episode, apparently trivial, was actually significant: it was caused by the fact that Giannini claimed that the delegation which he headed, centered on Syria, also included Palestine in its scope, as it had until the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Barlassina, on the contrary, disputed any such connection and supported his argument with a ream of documents demonstrating the total independence of the Latin patriarchate from the delegation in Beirut.Footnote 35
Over and above the question itself, this incident raised two more general issues: the need to clarify who represented the Holy See in a strategically important territory like Palestine that was subject to rapid changes; and the necessity to put an end to competition between the various Catholic institutions, particularly since the church's rivals in the region—be they Greek Orthodox, Protestant, or Jewish—seemed able to operate with far better effect. Both these needs were recognized by the Vatican Secretariat of State, which received unsettling reports about the situation, particularly the inveterate bickering between Latin and Greek Catholic clergy, which made vain the efforts to encourage the conversion of Orthodox believers to Eastern Catholic rites.
All these issues, and the need to find solutions, required the dispatch of an apostolic visitorFootnote 36 to Palestine who could report on the exact situation to Rome and seek to mediate between the various local claims. As an anonymous note by the Secretariat of State underlined:
A person who, free of the onus of governing any Diocese, being among but above all the complex, local movement, studies how to paralyze insofar as is possible the currents of evil, promotes and encourages good works, unites to a common purpose all Catholics, conciliating the differences which divide them, and rejoining any dissenters in the Union whilst keeping the Holy See truthfully informed of the situation in all things both general and specific.Footnote 37
For this delicate job, and upon the recommendation of Congregation for the Eastern Churches, the Vatican chose Father Robinson.Footnote 38 The British had attempted to impose him as patriarch on many occasions in place of Barlassina. He knew the Middle East well, and Palestine in particular, having been there various times. One especially important occasion was in 1920, when he visited the region in an attempt to smooth things between patriarchate and Custody and to facilitate relations with the British. The last was in early 1925 to investigate the feared collaboration between Anglicans and Greek Orthodox.Footnote 39 Fortified by the new mandate from the Holy See, Robinson reached Palestine in October 1925 to be warmly welcomed by the British, who expected his arrival to coincide with a drastic reduction in Barlassina's prerogatives. It was not lost on the British that behind the Franciscan's visit was a desire in the Vatican to establish a direct representation in Palestine, one which could separate the interests of the Holy See from the squabbling amongst the local Catholic institutions.Footnote 40
Between October 1925 and May 1926, Father Robinson investigated the situation of the Eastern Catholic communities and their relations with the Latin clergy. His efforts were cautiously supported by the brotherhood of the Custody and by the clergy and episcopate of the Melkites. Unsurprisingly, Barlassina disapproved of the visit from the start. The patriarch, in a terse letter to Van Rossum dated November 1925, complained about the Franciscan's mission. He underlined how Robinson was just a passive pawn in the hands of the Greek Catholic and especially of the bishop of Saint John of Acre, Gregorio Hajjar: they were using his presence to continue their anti-European, anti-Latin, and anti-patriarchal agitation, which had begun some years back.Footnote 41 Although in public meetings and contacts with figures outside the Catholic world Robinson tended to defend the doings of the patriarch, explaining his bad relations with the British and his anti-Zionist obsessions as questions of character and poor diplomatic qualities, he was fully aware of Barlassina's hostility.Footnote 42 Along with this, as his visit progressed, Robinson became more aware that, in order to reinforce the Melkites and facilitate the “passage” of the Orthodox believers to Greek Catholic rites, a permanent Vatican representative was necessary—one able to contain the “Latinization” policies prosecuted by the patriarchal clergy.
The necessity of this solution emerged with even more urgency during 1926. In that year, the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, having become involved in the arguments between Barlassina and Giannini by the secretary of state, communicated its opinion in favor of the delegate in Syria. The Congregation underlined how the examined documentation, while not showing the patriarch could be regarded as “representative of the Holy See in Palestine,” supported the claim that the apostolic delegate in Syria should be considered also the delegate “for all the Bishops of all ranks in Palestine, with no exception being made for the Latin Patriarch.”Footnote 43
This opinion expressed by the secretary of state was communicated in February 1926 to Giannini. The following month, while Barlassina was in Rome, Robinson passed the news on to the deputy of the Latin patriarchate, Monsignor Kean, and to the deputies of the Eastern Catholic patriarchates present in Jerusalem. The secretary of state's decision did not, however, lead to a resolution of the dispute. Barlassina returned to Jerusalem after he had been told the news and immediately adopted a very argumentative attitude toward Robinson and the way the news had been spread. Moreover, he protested repeatedly both to Cardinal Gasparri and to Cardinal Van Rossum, to whom he sent a memorandum in order to demonstrate that the conclusions of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches were groundless and that the apostolic delegates in Syria had never had jurisdiction over the Latin patriarch.Footnote 44 Over and above the juridical aspects of the dispute, what is worth underlining is the fact that Barlassina had no intention whatsoever of placing himself under the jurisdiction of Giannini. This was for one reason in particular: the delegate in Syria was a Franciscan; strengthening his role in Palestine, therefore, would have translated into growth of the Custody's prerogatives with regard to the other Catholic institutions and a miserable sidelining of the patriarchate.Footnote 45
Barlassina's opposition and the Vatican's desire not to humiliate the patriarch, whose work in the purely spiritual sphere continued to be appreciated, played an important role in subsequent decisions. However, some objective factors were of even greater importance. In a report sent in November 1926 to Cardinal Luigi Sincero, deputy secretary of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, Robinson put forward a series of points that led him to suggest setting up an autonomous papal representation in Jerusalem and abandoning the idea that protection of Catholic interests could be left to the far-off Apostolic Delegation in Beirut.Footnote 46 The first reason was political in nature. At the time of the Ottoman Empire, Syria and Palestine had both been part of the same state administration. Now, however, Syria was administered by the French, whereas Palestine and Transjordan were ruled by the British. This made it difficult for the apostolic delegate in Beirut, who had to deal with governments that had opposite opinions and interests. Furthermore, the physical distance between Beirut and Palestine and the many duties the delegate had in Syria—a region with many Eastern Catholic patriarchs—made his influence in Jerusalem slight and practically nonexistent in Transjordan. The consequence was that the Eastern Catholics in Palestine and Transjordan found themselves without any direct protection from the Holy See. This situation was made worse by Barlassina's attitude. Unlike his predecessor Camassei, Barlassina had no empathy for the Eastern rites and did not tone down in the slightest the claims for “Latinization” made by the clergy of the Latin patriarchate. The presence of an apostolic delegate with fixed residence in Jerusalem would have reinforced the position of the Eastern Catholics, one in line with a policy of openness toward the Eastern Catholic rites that the Holy See had adopted since the papacy of Leo XIII. Moreover, it would have served as a call to the Greek Orthodox believers who should have been drawn to Catholicism following the favorable treatment of the Eastern Catholic churches. This policy gave another advantage from Robinson's standpoint: it would have helped to “Arabize” the Catholic Church in Palestine even more, making it more a local institution than a foreign mission.Footnote 47
If these were the reasons pushing the apostolic visitor to view favorably the establishment of a delegation guaranteeing the Eastern rites, other reasons seem to suggest the possibility that the future delegation would become responsible for all Catholics, whatever rites they observed, in Palestine, Transjordan, and Cyprus. Thus, all believers would be included from the diocese of the Latin patriarch in its jurisdiction. A solution of this sort would have made contact easier with the Holy See and the Mandate administration, thus ending the dispute about Giannini's jurisdiction that Barlassina continued to oppose.Footnote 48
In the subsequent years, Robinson had the occasion to further deepen his understanding of the situation in Palestine. In December 1926, he returned to the region to complete the visit of the Eastern Catholic institutions.Footnote 49 Between August 1927 and April 1928, he was apostolic visitor to the Latin institutions in the region, entrusted by the Congregation of Propaganda Fide to smooth the differences between patriarchate and Custody that had reemerged over a property dispute as well as those between the various religious orders.Footnote 50 It was a mission that, while being crowned with a certain measure of success in resolving the controversies, placed him in direct opposition to Barlassina: the patriarch regarded Robinson's new appointment as a further demonstration of the Holy See's reduced faith in himself and the Latin patriarchate.Footnote 51
After nearly three years in Palestine, the conclusions reached by the apostolic visitor were not flattering to the Catholic institutions. In a summary report sent to Rome in 1928, Robinson highlighted the disunity and rivalry existing between the Latin and Eastern rites. This conflict was regarded as more serious because it made conversion from the Orthodox Church more difficult than they would have been otherwise. The repercussions of such a state of affairs were especially grave in Transjordan where the open conflict between the patriarchal and Greek Catholic missions caused numerous difficulties and made vain most of the sizeable movement toward conversion from Orthodoxy.Footnote 52
Relations within the Latin institutions were no better, dominated as they were by the long-standing dispute between patriarchate and Custody. It was a controversy, Robinson went on, that had started up again in the early years following the war due to the contrary positions of Diotallevi and Barlassina but that was now kept alive almost exclusively by the aggressive attitude of the latter. The consequences of this situation were regarded as very dangerous given that the rivalry between patriarchate and Custody seemed to favor the Greek and Armenian Orthodox churches and to undermine the Latin rights to the sanctuaries. Both the main Latin Catholic institutions in the Holy Land were judged to be responsible for this situation. The Custody appeared to be tied to an antiquated modus operandi unable to meet the challenges of the socio-economic developments in Palestine, starting with the need for modern schools that could stand comparison with the Protestant ones. However, there is no doubt that in Robinson's analysis it was the patriarch who was considered mainly to blame for the situation, to the extent that his resignation was openly wished for.Footnote 53
That Robinson took a very negative view of Barlassina appears confirmed by his letter to Gasparri in February 1929 in which he comments on the latest protest raised by the patriarch with the British authorities about an unimportant question of procedure:
The inconvenience of reopening this question at the present time is obvious to anyone except evidently Mgr. Barlassina who, because of his overly litigious nature, is always looking for an argument, creating disputes and divergences which could easily be avoided. I am most reluctant to criticize the attitude and behaviour of Mgr. Barlassina in any way, given that he is an excellent priest, full of zeal, self-sacrifice and force of will, and also a man of uncommon ability, initiative and courage. But even the Latin Patriarch's most ardent supporters and closest friends will admit to and complain about his quarrelsome nature and his awkward dealings with people. He has always placed himself in opposition to the Palestine Government—which will never be friendly towards him—and he has alienated not just the Muslims, the Jews and the Protestants, but also the Uniati: that he has alienated all the religious congregations and exhausted and exasperated all the Latin faithful of good sense who would wish to help him. . . . In fact, speaking from 20 years of personally knowing the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, I distinctly doubt that its prestige or influence have ever been lower than they are at present.Footnote 54
Despite this damning judgement of Barlassina's responsibility, Robinson did not want the Latin patriarchate to be completely reformed or, as many Greek Catholics hoped, suppressed and replaced by a Melkite patriarchate.Footnote 55
Robinson's moderate attitude, oriented toward containing Barlassina's excesses without compromising the prestige of the patriarchate, clearly emerges in the issue of the establishment of the Apostolic Delegation. In 1926, he declared himself in favor of setting up an autonomous delegation that would be able to give help to the Eastern Catholics in Palestine and coordinate all Catholic activities in the region. During 1928, however, after repeated consultations with the delegate in Syria, Giannini, Robinson revised his position. In a memo sent directly to the pope, he confirmed the necessity of having a delegation in Jerusalem, because Giannini's jurisdiction over Palestine continued to be just nominal. However, he also suggested that they should not create an independent Apostolic Delegation but should instead incorporate Palestine, Transjordan, and Cyprus into the Apostolic Delegation to Egypt. There were three reasons behind this: a permanent delegate to Jerusalem would have risked months of inactivity, due to the reduced amount of business to deal with; his continued presence would have diminished too much the role of the Latin patriarch; and the requirements of Egypt and Palestine, both under British rule, could easily be harmonized, thus avoiding the ambiguity that had built up around the delegation to Beirut. In addition, contrary to the delegate in Syria, who had to deal with a Catholic presence that was splintered but sizeable, the Vatican's representative in Egypt had a much smaller task with the limited number of Catholics there, be they Latin or Eastern.Footnote 56
IV. The Estalishment of the Apostolic Delegation in Jerusalem and the Political and Religious Consequences
At the beginning of 1929, Father Robinson's suggestions became reality. The preceding November, having obtained a favorable opinion for the establishment of the apostolic delegate from the Greek Catholic patriarch, Cyril IX, the heads of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches and Pius XI himself decided to move rapidly on to the operational phase with a view to avoid uncontrollable rumors from spreading regarding Vatican decisions and the forthcoming new appointments.Footnote 57 In February 1929, therefore, the Apostolic Delegation to Palestine, Transjordan, and Cyprus was formally constituted, headed by the apostolic delegate to Egypt, Monsignor Valerio Valeri, who was committed to live part of the year in Jerusalem.Footnote 58 He had two tasks in his new job. From a strictly ecclesiastical standpoint, Valeri would have to play the role of referee in all the controversies between the various institutions and Catholic rites. For this reason, he would have to harmonize the sensibilities of Custody and patriarchate; smooth the differences between patriarchate and the Jerusalem seminary of Saint Anne (led by the French White Fathers) where the Greek Catholic clergy were trained; improve the situation in Transjordan, putting an end to the counterproductive competitiveness between the Latin and Melkite missions; check the seemingly opaque administrative situation of the Melkite diocese of Saint John of Acre; solve the problem of the Maronite faithful in Cyprus, who declared themselves overlooked by their own bishop; and verify the feasibility of restoring the Greek Catholic patriarchate in Jerusalem (a request put forward by some lay and religious Melkites, behind which the Holy See believed there were political maneuvers designed to reinforce Arab-Palestinian nationalism). Regarding relations with the civil authorities, Valeri would have to take on himself the responsibility for all dealings with the British, becoming the sole interlocutor with the Mandate authorities. Consequently, the delegate was instructed to pay particular attention to the Catholic schools, which appeared to be threatened by some legislative changes proposed by the British.Footnote 59
Backed with these instructions and preceded by an article in L'Osservatore Romano—the unofficial Vatican daily newspaper—which clarified the extension and nature of his jurisdiction, Valeri reached Jerusalem in April. There he was met by the civil and religious authorities of the city.Footnote 60 The solemnity of the welcome accorded the delegate did not suggest, however, that the main players were unaware that his appointment profoundly changed the existing relations between Catholic institutions and their attitude toward the political power. From that moment, all relations with the British High Commission and all civil authorities would need to be through the delegate, as the secretary of state, Cardinal Gasparri, ordered to all the Catholic heads in the Holy Land.Footnote 61 This news must have been particularly galling to Barlassina, who, up to then, had continued to act as a sort of semi-official papal representative, notwithstanding all the contradictions, denials, and corrections.Footnote 62
Moreover, it would not seem incidental that the Custody perceived Valeri's nomination as a victory for the Franciscans, given its more than ten years of opposition to the patriarch.Footnote 63 At first glance, therefore, the establishment of the delegation seemed to be a defeat for the strategy of political activism and involvement of the church in local issues, as promoted by Barlassina, and a confirmation of the more traditional approach of the Franciscans aimed at defending Catholic interests in the sanctuaries. In reality, this was just one of the many aspects involved in the change and probably not the most important; in the Vatican, the establishment of the delegation was also regarded as a way to better direct the actions of the Custody, which often seemed not to be up to the job of serving modern pastoral needs.Footnote 64
Efforts to place a limit on the competition between Latin and Greek Catholic initiatives were at the center of Valeri's activities in Palestine. The delegate tried to limit as far as possible the number of the faithful who passed from Eastern Catholic rites to Latin one: a phenomenon—often done for family reasons or out of mere material interest—that openly contradicted the instructions of the Holy See, particularly the 1894 apostolic letter Orientalium dignitas ecclesiarum, which held that converts from the Orthodox churches should be welcomed in the corresponding Eastern rites and that the Eastern presence should be favored in the Levant.Footnote 65 In this attempt to impede the process of “Latinization,” the delegate clashed with the deaf opposition of the Latin institutions and, most of all, with the patriarchate and Custody, who were for once united in their views. Nor were the protests destined to die down with the successors to Valeri, who was nominated in the spring of 1933 as apostolic nuncio in Romania. On the contrary, these problems were aggravated during the long delegation of Monsignor Gustavo Testa, who was less sympathetic to the Easterners than his predecessor and very skeptical about the vitality of all the Palestine Catholic communities.Footnote 66
A clear clue to this situation can be found in the fact that, still in the summer of 1937, the French Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, newly appointed as secretary of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, had to intervene with Barlassina, deploring the rivalry between Greek Catholic and patriarchal missions in Transjordan and reminding him of the Vatican's instructions favoring the Eastern rites in cases of conversion from Orthodoxy.Footnote 67 It was an intervention that, while proving the determination of the Congregation to resolve controversial cases in favor of the Melkites, appears to have been generated by the persistence of the endemic competitiveness between the different rites in Transjordan—a competition which flared up once again in 1935 despite the reorganization of the Greek Catholic presence in the region with the creation of a single, autonomous eparchate.Footnote 68
The difficulties which the apostolic delegates encountered in favoring the Melkites were caused by the resistance of the Latin clergy. They were the most numerous in the region, often the richest and most learned, and frequently of European origin, but they found it difficult to give up missionary attitudes—even long-time residents of Palestine who spoke fluent Arabic and otherwise identified completely with the local Catholic population. Patriarch Barlassina is a perfect example of this attitude. However, it should not be thought that the resistance of the Latin clerics constituted the only obstacle to moving the way the Holy See wished. Another significant problem consisted in the intrinsic limits of the Melkite community and its leaders, first and foremost Monsignor Hajjar. The poor theological and pastoral training of the Greek Catholic clergy as well as a political activism that often crossed the line into open nationalism—united with numerous examples of venality—resulted in strengthening the hand of the supporters of “Latinization.”Footnote 69 On this point, it is worth underlining how the financial and administrative situation of the diocese of Saint John of Acre, the main Melkite center in Western Galilee, remained unviable for a long time despite Valeri's instructions in his mandate to solve this problem. Again, in the second half of the 1930s, an inspection visit to assess the financial state of the diocese revealed the incorrect practices as well as misappropriations that continued to typify the administration there.Footnote 70
The apostolic delegate's efforts to improve the vital relations with the British administration met with more success than the intra-ecclesiastic issues he faced. From this standpoint, the situation had been improving for some years already, and the period of toughest opposition between Catholics and the British administration appeared to be over. With the creation of the delegation in Jerusalem and the appointment of Valeri, however, the Mandate government found itself for the first time facing a sole interlocutor clearly backed by the Vatican and accepted by all the local Catholic hierarchy. Moreover, Valeri was a tactful diplomat with a solid career behind him; he was also a knowledgeable admirer of British culture. Qualities like these—alongside the good relations he enjoyed with the British in Cairo, where he had been delegate since 1927—made the British observers believe that his appointment was the best possible.Footnote 71 As Henry Chilton, British envoy to the Vatican, noted, Robinson's nomination as delegate, which would have been the ideal choice for the Foreign Office, was rendered impossible due to his belonging to the Franciscan Order; his selection would have made the whole operation look like a victory for the Custody and a humiliation for the patriarchate.Footnote 72
In relations with the British administration, the changes brought about by the appointment of Valeri were evident from the outset and took concrete form in the successful attempt to develop cordial and direct contact with British functionaries.Footnote 73 At the same time, it helped to underline the independence of Vatican policy from the Italian one in a moment when, due to the so-called Conciliazione, the Italian political circles tried to use the protection of Catholic rights and interest in Palestine to spread Italian influence in the Middle East.Footnote 74
The good relations established between the delegation and the British administrations did not weaken under Valeri's successors. In particular, Monsignor Riccardo Bartoloni established very positive relations with the British in his brief stint as apostolic delegate, which concluded dramatically in Jerusalem in October 1933.Footnote 75 The brief relationship with the British enjoyed by Monsignor Torquato Dini—before his sudden death in Cairo on March 26, 1934, only a few weeks after his appointment—was also inspired by a spirit of trust and friendship when he took over from Bartoloni.Footnote 76
The sudden deaths of the two apostolic delegates and the worry that Barlassina would succeed in obtaining the nomination of a replacement more to his liking caused the resurgence in some British diplomatic circles of the desire to be able to count on a British national as representative of the Holy See in Palestine. In this design, the Apostolic Delegation in Palestine, Cyprus, and Transjordan would have had to be detached from that of Egypt and entrusted to a British cleric.Footnote 77 Once again, such hopes were groundless, and the Apostolic Delegations in Egypt and Palestine remained linked together under the new leadership of Monsignor Gustavo Testa—a career diplomat who, while having served his most significant role in the Saar region in Germany, nevertheless gave solid guarantees of a positive attitude toward the British government.Footnote 78 In line with this, and despite the reserved attitude of Testa about political questions and his sympathy for the Fascist regime, it would seem that under his management the relations of the Apostolic Delegation with the British administration continued to be excellent, following the direction established since 1929.Footnote 79
It is more difficult to understand whether this continued improvement was due to the actions of the apostolic delegates as they made their way to Jerusalem or was the natural outcome of an international political situation that seemed to induce the Vatican to abandon its longstanding diffidence toward British policy around the mid-1930s.Footnote 80 In a Europe and world that was ever more turbulent, with many openly anti-Christian governments, the British Empire, nominally Anglican but de facto liberal, must have seemed to the Vatican one of the few guarantees of Catholic interests in the Middle East. Whatever the deeper reasons were, the fact is that starting from the establishment of the Apostolic Delegation in 1929 the relations between Catholic authorities in Palestine and the Mandatory administration improved constantly, despite some recurrent tensions over the status quo of the sanctuaries, Protestant proselytism, and the incautious activism of Barlassina.
In comparison with the changes that took place in relations with the British and those between the various Catholic institutions, the creation of the Jerusalem Apostolic Delegation had less impact on the Arab-Zionist conflict. From this point of view, it was only able to accelerate some processes that were already underway. On this point, it is worth observing how opinion changed in Catholic circles regarding the Arab nationalist movement. From 1929 onward, the Vatican view was increasingly cold toward Palestinian nationalism. This derived from the horror felt after the August massacres and became felt more and more over the subsequent years as one incident after another occurred, seeming to threaten the cooperation or even the coexistence of the Muslim majority with the Christian minority in the Arab population. These events gave Catholic observers the impression that the Arab nationalist movement was taking on a more Islamic character—one that was potentially dangerous for Catholic interests.Footnote 81
In this new situation, only the Melkite community continued to side with the nationalists, despite the interdenominational incidents which took place in Haifa at the beginning of the 1930s.Footnote 82 Its leader, Hajjar, never missed a chance to show his firm support for anti-Zionist initiatives. The involvement of the Latin prelates was less committed, however. These had always attributed a mainly tactical function to the Arab national movement, with the aim to join the entire Arab Palestinian community—be it Christian or Muslim—in a common objective. With respect to these positions, Valeri was decidedly a moderating influence, trying to avoid Catholic involvement in the political dynamics and keeping the episcopate, clergy, and faithful at a distance from the more radical positions.Footnote 83 This policy was imitated with more or less success by his successors beginning with Testa, who always expressed his distaste for the excessive involvement of the Arab clergy in politics.Footnote 84
In light of the above, it would seem reasonable to assert that, since 1929, the presence in Palestine of apostolic delegates played an important role in the detachment of the Catholic institutions and clergy from open contiguity with Arab nationalism. The basis of this attitude was the more general evolution of events and the potentially dangerous nature that Arab nationalism had taken on, as far as Christian interests were concerned, over the course of the decade. There is no doubt, however, that the possibility of being able to make use of local representatives who directly answered to the secretary of state gave the Holy See the chance to act independently of the moods and feeling of the local Catholic hierarchy as it progressively distanced itself from Arab-Palestinian nationalism.
As our sources are very fragmented, however, it is more difficult to know how the attitude of Latin laity change during the decade. There were many different positions toward the Palestinian-Arab movement, and these became even more diverse in the second half of the 1930s during the Great Revolt. The only aspect that can be brought to light is that the Latin laity was more involved in nationalistic activities than the clergy, but, at the same time, they were the least nationalistic group among the main Christian Palestinian communities.
Starting from 1929, there was a diminution in sympathy for Arab-Palestinian nationalism among Catholics in the Holy Land. However, this development was not the prelude to some decisive shift in the view of Zionism. Although Catholic polemics against Zionism became less intense starting in the mid-1920s, its reasons remained alive, being based on a hostility that was at once theological, political, and customary. From this standpoint, the establishment of the Apostolic Delegation in Jerusalem could not change matters significantly. Some cautious approaches were sometimes shown by Valeri—certainly the apostolic delegate who showed the most interest in the internal dynamics of the Zionist movement. In fact, he revealed signs of sympathy and understanding for the more moderate parts of the Jewish nationalist movement, which was led by the rector of the University of Jerusalem Judah Magnes and supported the search for a modus vivendi with the Arabs for a future independent, binational, and federal Palestine.Footnote 85 Apart from this interesting appreciation, Valeri also shared the basic view that Zionist and Catholic interests were antithetical. Such a view remained unwaveringly firm during the delegation of Gustavo Testa, who was less interested in the inner workings of Yishuv and certainly less sympathetic to the Jewish cause. Rather, it should be noted how, during the last phase of Pius XI's papacy—characterized by a growing fear of communism on a global level—Zionism was considered once again to be the main vehicle for carrying Marxist ideology and materialistic lifestyles into the Middle East, a region that was otherwise regarded as immune from Bolshevik contamination.Footnote 86
V. Conclusions
After having reconstructed how the apostolic delegates who took their place in Jerusalem between 1929 and the second half of the 1930s dealt with the unfolding of the political and ecclesiastical situation, trying to translate the Holy See's wishes into concrete policy, it would seem possible to draw some conclusions.
The first point concerns the timetable for setting up the Apostolic Delegation for Palestine, Cyprus, and Transjordan. The establishment of the Apostolic Delegation to Jerusalem was the Vatican's response to the change that had redrawn the map of the Levant following World War I. Because this did not happen until 1929, it shows the slowness and difficulty the Vatican had in responding to political changes after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. It also demonstrates the Vatican's indecision when choosing among the different options of ecclesiastical policy on the ground. The result of this uncertainty was that, for more than a decade, management of the Catholic presence in Palestine stuck to the same principles that had been made obsolete by the changes produced by World War I.
At the same time, the choice of joining the Vatican representation in Palestine with that in Cairo shows how the Holy See intended to match the boundaries of papal representation in the Middle East with those corresponding to European spheres of influence. This policy, while helping to improve relations with the British, shows the pervasiveness of a Eurocentric mentality in the Vatican congregations and diplomacy—an attitude that seems to be in direct contrast with the effort to develop the local, native clergy and episcopate, evident in many other initiatives led by the Vatican in the region.
Alongside these aspects, which would seem to collocate the constitution of the Apostolic Delegation in Jerusalem in a rather traditional dynamic, others emerge which give us the image of a Holy See readier to meet the new political situation. In that sense, the need to have a papal representative in the Holy Land was born also from a desire to balance the prestige and influence of the Latin institutions with a strengthening of the Eastern Catholic rites. This was a long-term perspective that had its roots in the papacy of Leo XIII and was re-launched by Benedict XV and Pius XI. From this standpoint, with the creation of the Apostolic Delegation, 1929 can be seen as the arrival point of a long process. It also appears as a further development in this direction, since delegates after 1929 often acted in defense of the prerogatives of the Eastern Catholic churches.
On this point, it seems significant to note that, at the end of Pius XI's papacy in 1938, the entire “Easternization” process of the Catholic Church in the Levant found its conclusion in the decision to entrust the government of all Catholic institutions in those regions, be they Eastern or Latin, to the Congregation for the Eastern Churches.Footnote 87 It was a measure that put an end to the duality between the jurisdictions of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches and that of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide. At the same time, it led to a further sidelining of the Latin patriarchate's role—an institution that, after having reached the peak of its influence in the early 1920s, had seen a continual scaling down of its prerogatives.
The significance and the consequences of setting up the Apostolic Delegation, as far as political aspects are concerned, would appear to be less clear. If improved relations with the British are overlooked, the outcomes of the Vatican's policy in Palestine in the 1930s seem contradictory. On the one hand, the presence of the delegation and the action of the delegates limited the participation of Catholics, and especially the clergy, in the Arab-Palestinian nationalist movement. On the other, however, the complete rejection of Zionism remained unchanged at all levels. It was also the continued favoring of the Melkites that made impossible any change in direction there, since they were the Catholic component more closely connected with the Arab national movement. Thus, their promotion helped to maintain the contacts and overlaps with Arab nationalism that would otherwise have been intentionally superseded.
The establishment of the Apostolic Delegation thus appears at once the consequence of the Holy See's new Middle Eastern policy after the mid-1920s and the cause of the stronger trends that appeared in the subsequent decade. However, even this did not succeed in giving a more unitary character to Vatican policy, which pursued two partially conflicting aims: “Arabizing” the church in Palestine, emphasizing its local nature and the role of the Greek Catholics; and, at the same time, promoting greater detachment from Arab nationalism. This was a contradiction which, after World War II, would emerge dramatically with the proclamation of Israel and the first Arab-Israeli war.
The result of these complex dynamics was that, on the eve of World War II, despite many sectorial successes, the Vatican policy in the Holy Land continued to be ineffective regarding its main goal: the capacity to influence the future settlement of the region and to avoid that such an important territory, from the Catholic standpoint, would finish under non-Christian rule. There is no doubt that the Middle Eastern policy of the Holy See during the inter-war period was a complete failure. It is more difficult to know if, with a more coordinated and less conflictual approach among the different Catholic actors in the region and in Rome, the Vatican could have achieved more substantial results.
