Giuseppe Valerga

Giuseppe Valerga (9 April 1813 – 2 December 1872) was the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1847 until his death in 1872; the first resident such since the Crusades.

Prior to receiving his appointment at Jerusalem, Valerga had been part of the Propaganda Fide and had also worked with the Chaldean Catholic Church, in what is today Iraq.

[citation needed] In his efforts to reestablish the Latin Patriarchate, Valerga strove to make the Catholic faith the religion of the Palestinian villagers.

[citation needed] The new patriarch "established Latin missions in Palestinian towns and villages where Christian communities resided, such as Bayt Jala (1853), Jifna and Lidda (1856), Ramallah (1857), Bir Zayt and Tayba (1859) and Nablus (1862)".

[2] He was subsequently appointed Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre at its reconstitution by Pope Pius IX in 1868.