In his first Mass as cardinal, he acknowledged the flood of congratulations he had received from all quarters and all sects of his diocese. “Cardinals in our time are no longer the princes of the church,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said, “but its servants and those of the people of God.”

Energetic, resolutely modern, as comfortable with technology as with theology, and deeply cosmopolitan, Patriarch Pizzaballa shares Pope Francis’ intention to restore Jerusalem to its former glory.

The latest boutique hotel to open its doors in Bethlehem’s Old City, just minutes away from Manger Square, is the Morcos Nassar Palace, which doubles as a humanitarian project unique in Palestine and possibly in the Arab world.

One part of President Joe Biden’s ultra-publicized trip to the Middle East took place in private, away from the eyes of any of the journalists who accompanied him on the five-day visit.

The portrait of Pope Francis that emerges from conversations with his friends is that of a man as resolutely down-to-earth and dependably Argentinian as his immigrant neighborhood.