2 of 15

• Archbishop: U.N. ignoring plight of Iraqi Christians | Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput says the United Nations is ignoring millions of Iraqi Christians who have been targeted by Islamic extemists for violence and persecution (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
  
  
• Iraq's embattled religious minorities | Beneath the violent Sunni-on-Shi'ite, Shi'ite-on-Sunni headlines, Iraq's sectarian violence has devastated the country's 2,000-year-old Christian community and its religious minorities generally. A tragedy of historic proportions is unfolding (Editorial, The Washington Times)
  
  
• Protecting Iraq's religious minorities | An exodus has not only caused tragic hardships and uncertainty, but could mean the end of the presence in Iraq of ancient Christian and other religious minority communities that have lived on that land for 2,000 years (Felice D. Gaer and Charles J. Chaput, The Washington Times)
  
  

Back to index

Executing Saddam:

• Vatican cleric hopes for clemency for Saddam | A senior Catholic cleric has said he hopes former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein will be spared execution, citing the Church's opposition to the death penalty (Reuters)
  
  
• The rush to hang Saddam Hussein | Toppling Saddam Hussein did not automatically create a new and better Iraq. Executing him won't either ((Editorial, The New York Times)
  
  

Back to index

Christmas in Israel and Palestine:

• Muted Christmas for Gaza Christians amidst violence | Gaza's annual Christmas parade and midnight mass have been cancelled. For the first time, no Christmas decorations adorn the giant pine tree in the main square (Reuters)
  
  
• Will Papa Noel make it to Gaza? | The children of the strip's small Christian community have reason to worry, as Palestinian infighting threatens the holiday celebrations (Los Angeles Times)
  
  
• Bethlehem tries to stem exodus of Christians | West Bank town's economy suffers without tourists (The Boston Globe)
  
  
• Few foreign pilgrims travel to Bethlehem | Hundreds of people packed the Church of the Nativity on Monday to celebrate Christmas at Jesus' traditional birthplace, but few foreign tourists were among the worshippers, putting a damper on the holiday cheer (Associated Press)
  
  
• Christians find room in Bethlehem's holy 'twin towers' | Hundreds of Christians facing religious persecution and economic strangulation in Bethlehem have taken refuge in a newly unveiled Christian-only housing project built to dissuade them from fleeing abroad (The Telegraph, London)
  
  
• Bethlehem's second coming | For Jews, the little town of Christmas carols has acquired a more sinister significance. According to the government of Israel, about half of all the terrorist attacks on Israel come from or through Bethlehem (Daniel Johnson, The New York Sun)
  
  
• Is Christianity dying in Bethlehem? | When commentators apportion blame for the change, they inevitably tie it into the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Joerg Luyken, The Jerusalem Post)
  
  

Back to index

Elsewhere in the Mideast:

• Middle East exodus part deux | The war in Iraq has made Christians in the Mideast less safe. But that's just one side of the story (Editorial, Los Angeles Times)
  
  
• Christianity faces crisis in Mideast | Christians living in this war-torn region -- some under foreign occupation, others under authoritarian rule and a rising tide of intolerant Islamists -- are a varied lot (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
  
  
• The silent exodus | Vanishing Christians of the Mideast (Houston Chronicle)
  
  

next page... |  2 of 15

share this page

December (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50