Christians around the world celebrated Christmas with prayers for peace on Sunday amid fears of violence as pilgrims returned in droves to their saviour’s birthplace.
Thousands of pilgrims descended on Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus Christ enjoyed its busiest Christmas of the new century, while Pope Benedict XVI made an impassioned plea for peace in the Middle East, celebrating the first Christmas Mass of his pontificate.
The holy land is ”thirsting for peace”, the top Roman Catholic official in Jerusalem said in his annual Christmas sermon in Bethlehem on Sunday and urged political leaders to create life rather than death.
”God created you not to fear or to kill each other, but to love each other, to build and to cooperate together,” Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah told worshippers — including Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a Muslim — at the Church of the Nativity.
”To our political leaders, who by their policy can decide for the life or the death of so many in this land, we say: be builders of life, not of death. Our holy land thirsts to recover its peace and holiness,” he said.
But Bethlehem governor Salah Tamari complained the town has been transformed into a ”big prison” by the massive concrete barrier between Israel and the West Bank aimed at preventing terror attacks on Israelis.
Across the Mediterranean, Pope Benedict lit a candle for world peace at the window of his apartment as thousands of pilgrims gathered at the Vatican for the first midnight Mass of his pontificate.
”On this night, when we look towards Bethlehem, let us pray in a special way for the birthplace of our Redeemer and for the men and women who live and suffer there,” Benedict said in his homily at the traditional midnight Mass in St Peter’s Basilica attended by thousands of faithful.
”We wish to pray for peace in the holy land. Look O Lord, upon this corner of the Earth, your homeland, which is so very dear to you. Let your light shine upon it! Let it know peace!”
Thousands of invitations to the Mass were snapped up several days ago and thousands of pilgrims unable to get into St Peter’s Basilica followed the Mass on giant screens erected in the square.
Around the world, networks in 47 countries broadcast the Mass live.
In the battle-scarred Iraqi capital, Baghdad, minority Christians celebrated the midnight Mass several hours before dusk because of a night curfew and the danger of being out late at night.
Iraqi national television broadcast live part of the ceremony led by the patriarch of Babylon and head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Emmanuel III Delly.
”I do not want to make a distinction between Christians and Muslims, we are all Iraqis. A car bomb kills without distinguishing between Christians and Muslims,” Delly said before the Mass.
Christians account for about 3% of Iraq’s population, but many have left the country in recent years, fearing the growth of Islamist militancy.
United States troops enjoyed the rare experience of being waited upon by US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, who donned a white chef’s hat to serve a sumptuous Christmas dinner at a base in the northern city of Mosul.
”What can I get you?” he asked the soldiers who had a choice of lobster, steak or crab and lined up for photographs with the secretary.
Christians in Asia, too, were reminded of how the world remains a dangerous place, with Indonesian bomb squads scouring churches amid fears of a repeat of Christmas Eve bombings by extremists five years ago that claimed 19 lives.
Indonesians were warned to beware of bombs possibly gift-wrapped and left in public places, with anxieties heightened over possible revenge attacks for last month’s killing of Malaysian bomb maker Azahari Husin, a key member of the Jemaah Islamiyah extremist network.
In Sri Lanka, unidentified gunmen shot dead a Tamil legislator and wounded eight others during a Catholic Christmas Mass in the embattled eastern province of Batticaloa, police said.
Joseph Pararajasingham, a 71-year-old deputy who is allied to the Tamil Tiger rebels, was shot from behind at close range. — Sapa-AFP