The Jan. 10 inauguration of a vast church on the very spot where Jesus Christ was baptized by St. John the Baptist in the Jordan River was an event of significant symbolic importance, both spiritually and diplomatically.
It also reflected the Hashemite kingdom’s determination to establish itself as an essential stop-off point for pilgrims to the Holy Land as well as a haven of peace for the world’s Christian faithful, who are increasingly reluctant to travel to a region torn apart by geopolitical and ethnic-religious conflicts.
“So many biblical events and figures meet here that we could say that this place embraces the entire expectation of the Old Testament as directed to the coming of Christ, the manifestation of the Father,” said the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the ceremony of consecration of the altar, also attended by the patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, grandson of King Talal of Jordan and cousin of King Abdullah II of Jordan.
Initiated following the donation by the king of a 30,000-square-meter (almost-7.5-acre) plot of land on the outskirts of the historic site of Al-Maghtas (also known as Bethany Beyond the Jordan, in the Qafra region) in 2003, the project was completed just in time for the silver jubilee of the grand annual pilgrimage, which for the past 25 years has taken place every January around the feast of the Baptism of Christ. This jubilee also coincides with the celebrations of the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee.