Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin will consecrate Friday a new Catholic church at the traditional site of Jesus’ baptism in Jordan.
The cardinal will preside at the Jan. 10 dedication and inauguration of the Church of the Baptism of the Lord at Al-Maghtas, also known as the Baptism Site “Bethany Beyond the Jordan.”
According to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the church will be “one of the largest in the Middle East, joining esteemed places of pilgrimage and prayer like the Church of the Annunciation, the Church of the Nativity, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.”
How did a Catholic church come to be built in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the official title of a country with a 97% Muslim population? And what’s the significance of the new church?
The Pillar takes a look.
The project’s genesis
The construction of a Catholic church at the Baptism Site is possible thanks to the donation of nearby land in 2003 by King Abdullah II of Jordan.
The land was entrusted to an independent body known as the Baptism Site Commission, chaired by the philosophy professor Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad.
The commission’s plans for the site envisaged 12 new churches, including a Catholic church, Anglican church, Armenian church, Coptic church, and Russian pilgrims’ house, each paid for by the respective Christian community.
On May 10, 2009, King Abdullah accompanied Benedict XVI to the Baptism Site, where the German pope blessed a foundation stone for two Catholic churches to be built beside the Jordan River, one for Latin Catholics and the other for Melkites.
Benedict XVI offered a characteristically rich reflection on the meaning of baptism in his address.
“The Sacrament of Baptism, drawing its power from Christ’s death and resurrection, will be cherished especially by the Christian communities that gather in the new church buildings,” he said.
“May the Jordan always remind you that you have been washed in the waters of baptism and have become members of the family of Jesus.”
Pope John Paul II had visited Al-Maghtas in 2000, and Pope Francis traveled to the site in 2014, meeting with refugees and young disabled people at the Latin church.
The then Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, and his auxiliary Bishop Salim Sayegh oversaw the building of the church and a monastery.
A major contributor to the project was Nadim Muasher, a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre who assisted in memory of his son, Ayman, who died in a car accident near the site. Other donors included the Hungarian government, which also runs an assistance program for persecuted Christians worldwide.
The site of the new church and monastery, north of the Dead Sea and west of Mount Nebo, also includes a convent, visitor center, garden, and a Hill of the Cross. Members of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, founded in Argentina in 1984, will maintain the facilities.
The Church of the Baptism of the Lord, which has a capacity of more than 1,000 people, is made from Taffouh stone, a distinctive yellow limestone quarried in the West Bank’s Hebron Governorate.
The church’s stained-glass windows, constructed in nearby Lebanon, are inspired by the glasswork in France’s celebrated Chartres Cathedral.
What’s the significance?
The church’s consecration marks a major moment in the revitalization of the Baptism Site, which was esteemed throughout the first millennium of Christianity but fell into neglect following the Crusades and the decline of the Byzantine Empire.
A revival of interest in the site in recent decades led to its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2015.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the current Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told Vatican News that the consecration was a hope-filled sign for a war-torn region at the start of the 2025 Jubilee Year.
He said: “It is also a moment a hope, we could say, because in such a dramatic time for the life of the Middle East, the dedication of a new, great church, with the entire Church gathered, is a sign of unity and also a desire for continuity of life and growth of the Church in Jordan and throughout the Middle East.”
The consecration follows another sign of growth for the Church in Jordan: Pope Francis’ Dec. 17 appointment of the Amman-born Fr. Iyad Twal as a bishop for Jordan within the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
Following his episcopal ordination, Twal will serve as patriarchal vicar for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, home to an estimated 115,000 Catholics of differing rites, representing roughly 1% of the total population of 11 million people.
The Latin Patriarchate, which serves around 80,000 Catholics, has 32 parishes in the country.
In a Vatican News interview, Archbishop Giovanni Pietro Dal Toso, the apostolic nuncio to Jordan, said that Cardinal Parolin’s presence at the new church’s consecration underlined the Baptism Site’s importance.
“But at the same time, I think this visit is very important also as a sign of closeness to the local Church, to the Christians here in the Middle East, and that they are not alone,” he said.
There is also clearly a diplomatic dimension to the event. The designation of Parolin, the Vatican’s top diplomat, as papal legate signals the Holy See’s gratitude to the Jordanian authorities for enabling the church’s construction.
Jordan’s government, in turn, hopes the church will help to boost religious tourism and therefore the local economy.
In his Latin message naming Parolin as his legate, Pope Francis underlined the new church’s importance to local Christians.
“As we know, in these days the clergy and the Christian faithful in Jordan are eagerly awaiting the solemn consecration of the Church of the Baptism of Jesus by the Jordan River, the construction of which has been taken care of for almost 15 years,” he wrote.
He urged the cardinal to “extend the words of Our benevolence to the civil authorities, as well as to the followers of other religions, and to all those who eagerly encourage the mission of the Church, the idea of religious freedom, peace in the world, and the sincere good of the human person.”
The church’s consecration therefore serves a rare combination of purposes: it affirms the historical nature of the Christian faith, the local Catholic community, Holy See-Jordan relations, and the desire for peace in the Middle East.
It may prove to be one of the highlights of a momentous year for Catholics.
