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A day of cautious hope in Mideast

.S. soldiers from Blackfoot Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, dish up their Christmas lunch at K-wal combat outpost in the village of Shakarat, Iraq. Associated Press photos (Associated Press photos / The Spokesman-Review)
Nicole Winfield Associated Press
.S. soldiers from Blackfoot Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, dish up their Christmas lunch at K-wal combat outpost in the village of Shakarat, Iraq. Associated Press photos (Associated Press photos / The Spokesman-Review)

ROME – As the faithful marked Christmas Day, political and religious leaders called for peace and reconciliation amid flickers of hope in places long plagued by conflict.

In Iraq, Christians made their way past checkpoints on Tuesday to fill Baghdad churches in numbers unthinkable a year ago. And in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, where tradition says Jesus was born, Christians celebrated in an atmosphere of hope raised by the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

For them, and for all those in the “tortured regions” of the world, Pope Benedict XVI prayed that political leaders would find “the wisdom and courage to seek and find humane, just and lasting solutions.”

Benedict, delivering his Christmas Day address from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, urged the crowd to rejoice over the celebration of Christ’s birth, which he hoped would bring consolation to all people “who live in the darkness of poverty, injustice and war.”

In violence-ridden Baghdad, venturing out in large numbers late at night is still unthinkable, so the Iraqi capital’s Christians celebrated Midnight Mass in the middle of the afternoon on Christmas Eve.

On Tuesday some 2,000 went out to the Mar Eliya Church in the east of Baghdad where Iraq’s Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, leader of the ancient Chaldean Catholic Church, celebrated Mass.

He told the congregation that Iraq is “a bouquet of flowers of different colors, each color represents a religion or ethnicity but all of them have the same scent.”

He congratulated Muslims for their Eid al-Adha holiday, falling near Christmas, and Muslim clerics attended the service in a sign of unity.

On American military bases around Baghdad, soldiers celebrated with a cautious view.

“There’s a tremendous amount of progress on the ground,” said Brig. Gen. Jim Huggins, assistant division commander in charge of operations in southern Iraq. “There’s a lot of momentum. It’s just that we’ve got to take a few pockets and take it to the insurgents a bit more. … We’ve got a pretty tough mission ahead of us. We’re going to need 100 percent.”

Touring five bases Tuesday – ranging from large bases with several hundred soldiers to abandoned homes converted into small outposts – Huggins played the role of Santa Claus.

Instead of a sleigh, he hopped in and out of a Black Hawk helicopter. And instead of red knapsacks, his assistants toted camouflage backpacks filled with token gifts including small laser lights and international telephone calling cards.

Soldiers said they enjoyed better food than usual, including lobster tails, ham, turkey, prime rib and all the fixings. At Camp Hammer south of Baghdad, some planned to play football. Others were more interested in watching the Lakers-Suns NBA basketball game.

Christian pilgrims in Bethlehem filled the ancient Church of the Nativity, waiting in line to see the grotto that marks the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

The large numbers and the cacophony of languages were evidence that more visitors were there this year than in the past several years.

Kiel Tilley, 23, a science teacher from Charlevoix, Mich., said the relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at a U.S.-sponsored conference last month reassured him before his trip to Bethlehem.