Archbishop of Canterbury and pope focus on Gaza in Christmas messages
The archbishop of Canterbury and the pope have used their Christmas addresses to show solidarity with Bethlehem and those caught up in the Israel-Gaza war.
Referring to Jesus Christ’s birthplace, which is now in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Justin Welby said “the skies of Bethlehem are full of fear rather than angels and glory”.
He also drew comparisons to the turbulent conditions of Jesus’s birth and the current plight of children in the troubled region.
“Today a crying child is in a manger somewhere in the world, nobody willing or able to help his parents who desperately need shelter,” he said at the service at Canterbury Cathedral. “Or perhaps in an incubator, in a hospital low on electricity, like the Anglican alAhli [hospital] in Gaza, surrounded by suffering and death.
“Or maybe the newborn lies in a house that still bears the marks of the horrors of October 7, with family members killed and a mother who counted her life as lost.”
Amid a rise in antisemitic attacks in the UK, he talked of pupils “having to hide their Jewishness on their way to school in this country”.
Welby said “around the world we are beset with violence” and spoke of other victims of violence in Ukraine and Sudan, appealing to “prime ministers and presidents, to tyrants and despots, to warriors and warlords around the world, to leaders in every place at every level, to families, to mayors, to MPs to every individual” and urging: “Our appeal is simply this: change. Be transformed. It is within your gift.”
The cross he wore to deliver the sermon was a melted-down automatic rifle which came from a church in Philadelphia, whose outreach work includes taking in guns from the street and melting them down to make household objects and crosses. “Through their service they transform broken lives into restored dignity.”
The archbishop also paid tribute to King Charles, whose coronation he led in 2023, for following the example of
Jesus in providing leadership through service.
It has been reported that Welby will be knighted by the king for his “personal service” to the crown, being admitted to the Royal Victorian Order in the new year honours list.
In his Christmas Eve homily, the pope also spoke of the Israel-Gaza war, saying Jesus’s message of peace was being drowned out by conflict in the land where he was born.
“Tonight our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world,” Pope Francis said during the service at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
The pope has made appeals for a ceasefire in the conflict and has called for the release of all hostages held by Palestinian militant groups.
From Armenia and Azerbaijan to
Syria and Yemen, Ukraine to South
Sudan and Congo and the Korean peninsula, the pope appealed for
area over the coming days to provide reassurance.”
Detectives from the Met’s specialist crime command are leading the investigation. DCI Brian Howie said: “Our investigation continues and a team of detectives are working at pace to establish what happened that resulted in a young woman losing her life. My thoughts, and those of my team, are with her family and friends at this awful time.”
He added that while one person had been arrested, the police want to hear from anyone who was in the Spenlow House area between 7pm and 11pm on
Sunday 24 December and may have seen or heard anything suspicious.
“I would urge anyone with any information that may be relevant to our investigation, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed at the time, to come forward immediately,” he said. A postmortem is scheduled to take place on Tuesday.