The Vatican has yet to issue a formal response to the Trump administration’s invitation for it to join President Trump’s “Board of Peace.” Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, however, has made known his opinion. “What do I think of the Board of Peace? I think it is a colonialist operation: others deciding for the Palestinians,” he told Maria Gianniti, the Jerusalem correspondent for Italy’s national public broadcasting service, RAI, in an interview in Rome, Il Sole 24 ore reported on Feb. 6. “I would answer very candidly. They asked us to enter. A billion is no more, but above all, the task of the Church is not this. The Sacraments are the dignity of the person'.”
As of last Friday, Trump administration sources began telling various U.S. media that the White House hopes to hold the first meeting of the Board on Feb. 19 in Washington, D.C., probably at the now-named “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.” Sources say the meeting was not yet confirmed, but invitations were going out. By Associated Press’s account, the plan is for both world leaders who have accepted to join the board and the members of the executive committee for Gaza to attend. Other media say the meeting is also intended as a fundraiser for the reconstruction phase of the (one-sided) ceasefire in Gaza; all reports were in agreement that the details of the meeting are still being worked on.
