Christmas Cheer Hard to Find in Troubled Lands

Christmas in the troubled corners of the world, from Sarajevo to Somalia, offered few moments of cheer in the face of war and starvation. But pilgrims still danced in the rain in Bethlehem.

Before celebrating midnight Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope John Paul II thanked the hospital where he had surgery in July to remove an intestinal tumor. He told the staff at Gemelli Polyclinic, “To defend human life, love it, serve it with love and dedication are basic values and commitments of great responsibility.”

At the Mass, John Paul proclaimed joy for the birth of Jesus. But he lamented: “Can peace truly prevail on Earth when there is no goodwill, when people do not care if God loves them?”

In Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, pilgrims and tourists packed the Church of the Nativity, revered as the birthplace of Jesus. Outside, hundreds of Israeli soldiers and police patrolled in a bone-chilling rain.

Security, tight during most holiday seasons, was stepped up for fear of retaliation for Israel’s expulsion of 415 suspected fundamentalist Muslims from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In his address at midnight Mass in St. Catherine’s Church, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, sharply denounced the Palestinian deportations.

“These deportees are the sons of God and our brothers, just as the Jewish people are the sons of God and our brothers,” he said.

On a freezing Lebanese hillside, the deported Palestinians entered their second week trapped in a no-man’s-land near the border, fasting to preserve dwindling food stocks. Lebanon has refused them entry.

In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, there were breaks in the day for Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish services. Some troops with M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders sang “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night” under a blistering afternoon sun.

Christmas Eve in Sarajevo, the besieged capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, meant for many the daily routine of survival.

Children helped parents lug plastic jugs of water up flights of stairs. Teen-age girls chopped wood from logs their brothers and fathers brought from city parks.