On January 10, the solemn ceremony presided over by Cardinal Pietro Parolin as papal legate. It stands on land donated by King Abdallah II in the Wadi Al- Kharar area where the Franciscan archaeologist Michele Piccirillo brought to light the remains of the churches where the first Christian communities remembered this evangelical episode whose bimillenary will be celebrated right here in 2030.

The Catholic community of Jordan is preparing to experience a very important moment in the coming days, with the solemn inauguration of the Church of the Baptism of Jesus in Wadi al Kharar, the site in the desert area near the Jordan River where an ancient tradition identifies the evangelical story of the baptism of Jesus by the hands of John the Baptist. The celebration will be held on Friday, January 10 and will be presided over by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, whom Pope Francis has appointed as his papal legate. About 7,000 people are expected at the celebration, including faithful from the Catholic communities of the Holy Land and guests from abroad.

The rediscovery of the site of Wadi Al-Kharar is the result of research carried out by the great Franciscan archaeologist Fra Michele Piccirillo (who passed away in 2008), who, by identifying this location with the “Bethany beyond the Jordan” mentioned in the Gospel of John, brought to light the traces of some very ancient churches that testify to how it was precisely here that the Christian communities of antiquity placed the memory of the baptism of Jesus. The rest was done by the Jordanian royal family, who strongly believed in the potential of this discovery for interreligious dialogue and tourism. Thus the king donated a plot of land to all the Christian denominations present in Jordan, allowing each to build a new church in this very important place on the banks of the Jordan River.

John Paul II visited this site in 2000 during his historic Jubilee pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI laid the first stone of the Latin Church here, whose construction site was visited by Pope Francis in 2014 and which will now be solemnly inaugurated.

The completion of the church in the Jubilee year is an important step towards another event for this corner of the Holy Land: the Baptism Site is preparing to celebrate in 2030 the 2,000th anniversary of the baptism of Jesus in the waters of the Jordan River. And everyone's hope is that peace will allow many pilgrims to experience this important anniversary in this Holy Place of Jordan.

In the meantime, the area continues to be enriched with new spiritual proposals: last summer, Prince Ghazi Ibn Mohammed, Chief Advisor to King Abdullah II for Cultural and Religious Affairs and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Baptism Site Authority, officially opened the Path of John the Baptist. It is a path that unfolds for about 3 km to be covered on foot, which includes seven different stations punctuated by biblical meditations. It starts from the hill of St. Elias and then crosses the Wadi Al-Kharar to the baptismal pool, the spring of John the Baptist and the remains of the churches that were built here in ancient times in memory of the baptism of Jesus. The path ends right in the area of ​​the Latin Church.