Concern over Bethlehem

Darkness is falling there.

The town where Jesus was born is “living one of its history’s darkest chapters,” according to Victor Batarseh, the mayor of Bethlehem.

In an annual pre-Christmas address, Batarseh likened Bethlehem to “a big prison,” citing the Israeli security wall that rings the town and the tight restrictions on pilgrims visiting Palestinian territory.

A steady decline in tourism– and particularly the sharp drop in the number of Christians traveling to Manger Square for the annual Christmas celebration– have produced devastating effects on the local economy, the mayor reported. Unemployment in Bethlehem now stands at 65%, and ambitious young residents are leaving for better economic prospects elsewhere. The emigration trends are particularly strong among the town’s Christian families, who find themselves an increasingly small minority.

During last year’s Christmas celebration in Bethlehem, Archbishop Pietro Sambi– then the apostolic nuncio in the Holy Land, now the nuncio in the US— said that the 27-foot Israeli security wall outside Bethlehem “literally closes off horizons.” The Latin-rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem, using the same language that Mayor Batarseh used, said that the wall had made Bethlehem into a sort of prison.

I was there for that celebration last year with one of my sons. On the other side of the wall,in Jerusaelm, they see the wall as increased safety and security. On Bethlehem’s it is as the Patriarch describes.

The Christian exile from the land of Christ is alarming, and the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land is working as hard as they can to give Arab Christians a reason to stay with assistance for education and employment. They are in dire need.

Relief is coming from the Vatican.

Archbishop Josef Cordes, the president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, is traveling to Israel this week, to convey the Pope’s solidarity with the Christian community of the Holy Land and to deliver two gifts from the Holy See.

Archbishop Cordes will present a donation of €1 million– collected from Bavarian dioceses during the Pope’s visit in September– to fund a pastoral center in Nazareth. The donation will be delivered to Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, at the head of the Franciscan Custody for the Holy Land. 

The archbishop will also bring a $50,000 donation for the construction of a school in the Mughar village. That gift, which will be presented to Melkite Catholic Archbishop Elias Chacour, represents the revenue from a Vatican preview of the film, The Nativity Story. The school is intended to educate Christian, Muslim, and Druze children together.

These gifts constitute the most basic sustenance the Franciscans need to serve a community that has gone from dire need into full blown crisis. Those children are the hope of future peace. I cannot imagine Bethlehem without Christians, but I have seen it without peace. Except for the peace that comes from being on the site where Christ was born.