Jerusalem

The Vatican’s envoy to the United Nations has issued a plea to the world body to deal with the plight of the dwindling Christian population in the Holy Land. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See’s observer to the UN, said that Christians in the Holy Land had become the targets of religious extremists.

“We are obliged this year to draw attention to the growing difficulties faced by Palestinian Christians who, although they belong to a faith born in that very land, are sometimes viewed with suspicion by their neighbours,” Archbishop Migliore said at the United Nations Nov. 1.

“Doubly discriminated against, it is hardly surprising to learn that this tiny group – less than two per cent of the local Palestinian population – is particularly marginalized,” the envoy added. There has been rising tension in the Bethlehem area in recent years. The Muslim population has swelled in the Palestinian-ruled West Bank town where Jesus was born as Christian numbers have shrunk.