Bethlehem Today

Sixty years ago, Bethlehem was overwhelmingly Christian. Today, it has a Muslim majority.

The town’s Christian population has dwindled from more than 85 per cent in 1948 to 12 per cent of its 60,000 inhabitants in 2006.

There are reports of religious persecution, in the form of murders, beatings and land grabs.

The town, according to Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, is being "steadily strangled".

The sense of a creeping Islamic fundamentalism is all around in Bethlehem.

Κύριε ἐλέησον.