(SRN NEWS/AP) – Eighty-eight percent of us are celebrating Christmas today, down from 96% who did so 20 years ago.
But while secular forms of celebration remain popular, religious ones are in decline. Fewer Americans will be going anywhere near a church and fewer put out Nativity scenes or other religious displays at their homes.
Even self-identified Christians are changing their ways. Just 61% of them say they attend church on Christmas Eve, down from 73% in 2010.
But thousands of people flocked to Bethlehem’s Manger Square on Christmas Eve as families there and at other sites across the Holy Land heralded a much-needed boost of holiday spirit, after two years of subdued celebrations because of the war in Gaza.
At the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV presided over his first Midnight Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. In his homily, he marveled at the “wisdom” of the Christmas story — an infant Jesus born to save mankind.
“In the face of the suffering of the poor, (God) sends one who is defenseless to be the strength to rise again,” the first U.S. pope told a packed basilica.
Bethlehem, where Christians believe Jesus was born, had canceled Christmas celebrations during the war. But on Wednesday, the giant Christmas tree returned to Manger Square, temporarily replacing the wartime nativity scene of baby Jesus surrounded by rubble and barbed wire in a homage to Gaza’s suffering.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Catholic leader in the Holy Land, kicked off this year’s celebrations during the traditional procession from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, calling for “a Christmas full of light.”
Pizzaballa said he came bearing greetings from Gaza’s tiny Christian community, where he held a pre-Christmas Mass on Sunday. In the devastation, he saw a desire to rebuild.
“We, all together, we decide to be the light, and the light of Bethlehem is the light of the world,” he told thousands of people, Christian and Muslim.