Alexander Hubenko from Ukraine holds his 15-month-old daughter, Amalia, 15, as he lights a candle in the grotto of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, West Bank, Dec. 15, 2022. The church is built on what is believed to be the site where Jesus was born. (CNS photo/Debbie Hill)
By Judith Sudilovsky
Catholic News Service
BETHLEHEM, West Bank — On the third Sunday of Advent the pews of St. Catherine Church were overflowing, with families and young children, teens and older parishioners attending Mass in anticipation of Christmas.
Pilgrim groups waited outside in the courtyard and, in the Church of Nativity, adjacent to the parish church, more pilgrim groups gathered along the stairs leading to the grotto marking the place of Jesus’ birth, as Armenian clergy celebrated their liturgy.
Despite an uptick in violence between the Israeli army and Palestinians in the northern West Bank, the pre-Christmas atmosphere in Bethlehem was festive and optimistic and, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, Bethlehem hotels reported near full capacity during the weeks leading up to Christmas.
The return of visitors to the city is like a breath of air for local Christians, said St. Catherine parishioner Flor Abu Slameh, 28.
“We are preparing in our hearts for Christmas and to welcome baby Jesus, and when we see the people come to visit us here, we feel more alive,” she said.
Joelle Mohrez, 15, who attended Mass at St. Catherine Church with her three siblings, mother and grandmother, had a message for Christians abroad: “We still keep our traditions, we celebrate Christmas when Jesus was born, and I am glad to be born here. Life here isn’t just (the violence) you see on the media. We go out, we go shopping, we have places where we eat out, we have a social life, we have fun.”
While Christians make up less than 2% of the population in the Holy Land and many young Christian Palestinians emigrated in recent years due to the economic crisis of the pandemic and the difficult political situation, Mohrez’s grandmother, Randa, said she was proud that all of her four children have remained in the Bethlehem area.
“We are staying here in Bethlehem, hoping for peace,” she said.
While welcoming this increase of pilgrims to the Holy Land, in a Dec. 12 statement, the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land also expressed “great concern” about a situation they said is “progressively and rapidly deteriorating.”
“We have witnessed an upsurge in violence this year, with the highest Palestinian death toll in more than 20 years. Settler violence in the settlements is always more on the rise. The living area available to the Palestinian population continues to shrink, due to the sustained growth of settlements. We are also witnessing attacks to the Jewish population,” it said in the statement.
