Mayor of Bethlehem urges Pope to protect the Holy Land

Pontiff and Mayor of Bethlehem. Photo: Vatican Media

On September 25, 2025, the Mayor of Bethlehem, Maher Nicolas Canawati, met with Pope Leo, urging the pontiff to take a more active role in the situation in the Holy Land.

“Actually, the first letter that I wrote when I became the Mayor of Bethlehem was a letter to the Pope, because we believe that from here we can do many things and we can support our people,” he said. “And the most important thing is to give them hope.”

“I had a good time explaining to the Pope how important it is to intervene in what's happening in Palestine, in Gaza, in Bethlehem, and to preserve the living stones of the Holy Land, because the Holy Land without the living stones is just a mere museum,” the mayor said after the meeting.

Canawati, who is a Christian, described the catastrophic situation in the city of the Nativity.

“The Palestinian Christians are now only 168,000 in the Holy Land, while there are over 4 million Palestinian Christians all over the world. That by itself shows how much pressure there is on the Christians,” he noted.

Canawati, himself a Christian, explained that by law, the mayor of Bethlehem must be Christian, a provision upheld by Palestinian leaders “because they want to preserve the Christian community, the oldest Christian community in the world that lives in Bethlehem, in the Holy Land, in Palestine.”

The meeting was part of Canawati's European tour aimed at drawing attention to the plight of Christians in the Holy Land. The delegation is visiting Turin, Milan, Venice, Padua, Croatia, and Turkey.

Pope Leo assured the Palestinian delegation that he would "do everything possible" to end the war and assist the local population in Gaza and Palestine as a whole.

According to Palestinian law, the Mayor of Bethlehem must be a Christian – a condition supported by Palestinian leaders, "because they want to preserve the Christian community, the oldest Christian community in the world".

Bethlehem’s economy, dependent on pilgrimage and hospitality, has been devastated since the outbreak of war on 7 October 2023.

Earlier, the UOJ analyzed the war in Gaza by Israel.

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