HOLIDAY LIFTS SPIRITS EVEN IN DARK TIMES
Cleric: ‘I hope the coming year will bring a little more serenity and peaceful relations in our country’
BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Thousands of pilgrims and tourists from around the world, together with local Christians, gathered in the biblical town of Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas Eve in the traditional birthplace of Jesus, with spirits lifted by a slowdown in recent violence and cool, clear weather.
Security was tight in Bethlehem after recent deadly attacks on Christian targets in neighboring Egypt and Jordan by Islamic extremists.
Yet the faithful braved the chilly weather outside the town’s Manger Square as traditional Christmas songs like “Jingle Bells” played in Arabic over loudspeakers and scout groups paraded with bagpipes and sang carols. Elated tourists and local Christians alike wandered around the square, visiting souvenir shops and restaurants.
The Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate, is the temporary chief clergyman to the local Catholic population. He traveled from Jerusalem to Bethlehem on Saturday in a traditional procession. Later, he was to celebrate Midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity, built at the grotto revered as Jesus’ birthplace.
“I wish this joyous atmosphere of Christmas will continue in the year and not just for a few days and I hope the coming year will bring a little more serenity and peaceful relations in our country. We need it,” he said.
Christians return to Iraqi hometown
BARTELLA, Iraq — For the 300 Christians who braved rain and wind to attend Christmas’s Eve Mass in their hometown, the ceremony evoked both holiday cheer and grim reminders of the war raging around their northern Iraqi town, and the distant prospect of moving back home.
Displaced when the Islamic State group seized their town, Bartella, in August 2014, the Christians were bused into town from Irbil, capital of the self-ruled Kurdish region where they have lived for more than two years, to attend the lunchtime service in the Assyrian Orthodox church of Mart Shmoni.
Torched by ISIS militants, church-supervised volunteers recently cleaned it up after government forces retook Bartella as part of an ongoing campaign to liberate the nearby city of Mosul and surrounding areas. But the church still is missing its icons, electrical wiring hangs perilously from its ceiling, and most light fixtures are gone. The headless statue of a late patriarch stands in the front yard.
On Saturday, women joyously ululated when they stepped into the marble-walled church.
For many of them, the sight of their hometown in almost complete ruin was shocking. Only a few homes in the once vibrant town of some 25,000 people stand unscathed.
Short on cash, Zimbabweans must make do
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Most people in this once-prosperous southern African country are struggling to afford Christmas as the economy implodes.
The U.S. dollar, the main currency used since Zimbabwe abandoned its own in 2009, is in such short supply that some people sleep outside banks in the hope of withdrawing what they can.
In this predominantly Christian country, the holiday period is traditionally associated with wild merrymaking, travel, family gatherings and new clothes. This year is different.
Naison Makwechede rummages through piles of used clothes at a busy flea market in Zimbabwe’s capital in hopes of finding Christmas clothes for his family. This secondhand search is new terrain for the father of three, who always buys new clothes for his children this time of year in line with local holiday tradition.
“The bond note is the only new thing in my possession,” Makwechede said.
President Robert Mugabe said recently the economy was on the mend. But the government, which has failed to pay civil servants on time since June, indicated it will only be able to pay the military, police, prison services and health workers before Christmas.