Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem since 2020, is being considered as a leading candidate to succeed the deceased Pope Francis.

The in Rome will decide who will lead the world’s more than 1 billion Catholics on Wednesday.

Pope Francis, a Jesuit, elevated Pizzaballa to cardinal in September 2023. The following month saw a Hamas terror attack on Israel, resulting in over 1,200 deaths and more than 250 hostages. Shortly after, Pizzaballa offered himself as a hostage to Hamas in Gaza in exchange for the release of children kidnapped by the radical Islamists.

According to , Pizzaballa, the first cardinal residing in the Jewish state, stated his willingness to do “anything” to free the children, saying, “If I am ready for an exchange? Anything, if this can lead to freedom and bring those children back home, no problem. On my part, absolute willingness.”

Born in northern Italy in 1965, Pizzaballa remembers his childhood in the Italian village of Castel Liteggio fondly, recalling “those were the last years of a simple country life, with the farmsteads already beginning to depopulate, but still living the last moments of a world now gone by.”

He elaborated, remembering “The visits to the stables, where I was sent to fetch milk, the joy of riding in the horse-drawn carts to go make hay, the simple country games, and so on. It was a simple and genuine world, and a sober and happy life. Only with time did I realize how that world would influence me by giving me a style and pursuit of sobriety and sincerity.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who has known Pizzaballa since 2000, has praised his “fluid, eloquent Hebrew.”

Herzog previously stated, “. He is a leader knowledgeable and extremely well acquainted with the complexities of our region and enjoys the trust of all the concerned parties in Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and Israel. They respect him tremendously. His name precedes him.”

However, Pizzabella drew when he signed a statement urging Israel to “avoid killing innocent people” during its campaign to dislodge Hamas in Gaza.

The statement was viewed by some in Israel as insufficient in its condemnation of the Hamas attack. Pizzaballa later retracted his support for the statement, describing Hamas’s actions as “unacceptable and incomprehensible barbarity.”