Originally published at National Catholic Register
BETHANY BEYOND THE JORDAN, Jordan — Father Sergio Pérez, an Argentinian priest from the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), defines the site of the baptism of Christ in Jordan as “a passage from the Old to the New Testament.”
Father Pérez, whose congregation of contemplative missionaries was entrusted with the care of the Catholic church on the site known as Al-Maghtas, spoke to the Register following the Jan. 10 consecration ceremony of the altar of the brand-new Church of the Baptism erected at the entrance to the site by the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. The 2,200-square-meter church, whose foundation stone was laid by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, is one of the largest Catholic monuments in the Middle East.
Father Pérez, the superior of the community onsite — which counts five priests — since December 2023, previously served as rector of the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul in Tunis, Tunisia, between 2009 and 2019, before joining an IVE community in the Diocese of La Rochelle in France.
For him, this new mission to a major site in Christian history, still little known to the general public, represents a considerable opportunity for ecumenical and
