After two years of symbolic emptiness, the first Christmas tree in the Nativity Square in Bethlehem is still half finished, but people are already admiring it as if it were complete. Close to the first Christmas after two years of incessant bombing on Gaza, the image of this still severed tree reminds us that the promised peace has not yet arrived. The ceasefire has, in fact, frozen a situation of profound injustice. And in the West Bank, Palestinian Christians experience this reality not as a return to normality, but as a daily struggle for their very existence.
Issa, 34, a Palestinian Catholic born and raised in Bethlehem, is the image of a rooted and resilient faith. He works for an Italian NGO and lives here with his wife, Tamara, and their two-year-old son, Joseph, born just two weeks after that tragic October 7, 2023. For him, living in Bethlehem is a “great blessing” that places him physically on the paths walked by Jesus. But this blessing carries the weight of the Israeli military occupation, which denies fundamental human rights to all Palestinians, whether Christian or Muslim. Issa chose to return to Bethlehem after a Master’s degree in Italy, because he had a mission: «The Christian presence as a percentage has decreased a lot in recent years. Between Palestine and Israel we are less than 1% of the population. The time may soon come when Christianity will no longer be practiced in the very place where it was born. With the risk that our holy places become museums, no longer living places of faith. This is why I chose to return, to keep the stones of this land alive.” (…)
Continue reading the article by purchasing this week’s issue of Credere, on newsstands and in religious bookshops from Thursday 18 December and in parishes from Saturday 20. Or purchase your digital copy for 0.99 euros on www.edicolasanpaolo.it/scheda/credere.aspx
Credere, the magazine for living the “adventure of faith”
BELIEVE is the magazine that offers you stories, characters and columns every week to inspire faith in everyday life. Already chosen as the “Official Magazine of the Jubilee of Mercy”, it is a newspaper rich in content for the spirit, with many testimonies of famous people and ordinary people and the gestures and words of Pope Francis, closer than ever.
Discover the magazine and subscribe »
