Bethlehem expects spiritual, not material, uplift from Pope (Feature)

By Ofira Koopmans May 4, 2009, 5:05 GMT

Bethlehem, West Bank - The Pope is coming, but not everyone in the city of Jesus' birth is excited.

For many of the world's more than 1 billion Roman Catholics, including those who live in Bethlehem, the Holy Father's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a momentous event. It is also an extremely rare one, with Benedict XVI being only the third reigning Pope to set foot in the Holy Land.

But Radji, 36, an unemployed father of five from Bethlehem, shrugs when asked about it.

A Muslim, the visit has no religious significance for him personally, nor does he expect it to improve his daily lot.

'It's a miserable life here,' he says as he sits idly outside his relative's empty souvenir and carpet shop off Bethlehem's central Manger Square.

He used to work in nearby Jerusalem, painting and renovating homes, but the security wall built by Israel between the West Bank city and Jerusalem has made it much harder to find and reach work in Israel.

One of the 30-per-cent unemployed in Bethlehem, he has not worked a single day for more than a year and sighs: 'If you want to go to Jerusalem you need a permit.'

'Nothing. Nothing new,' says also Adel Khalil, 39, asked what he expects of the papal visit.

It may draw large numbers of pilgrims, but they will likely not make it to his hummus (Arab chickpea paste) eatery, he says.

Despite the pick-up in tourism to Bethlehem - a record number of tourists and pilgrims visited in 2008 - his eatery located just dozens of metres from one of Christendom's most important shrines is empty most of the time.

The only visitors are a handful of locals who come and go, including an old man in a traditional white Arab headdress.

Busloads of foreign tourists and pilgrims are dropped off at the nearby Church of the Nativity, believed to mark the site where Jesus was born, on the opposite side of Manger Square.

But local shop owners say they do not profit from them, because the tourists enter the Church in groups for about one hour and are then bussed back to Jerusalem without being given any free time to wonder around outside the Church and in Bethlehem's historic centre.

The tour buses only stop at a few large restaurants and souvenir shops on the main road entering Bethlehem, the local shop owners complains.

A handful of rich local Palestinian families who own these large outlets are therefore the only ones in Bethlehem to benefit, they add. The tour guides get commission from them, they explain.

In addition, Israel earns most from the tourists, because the vast majority of them sleep in hotels and dine in restaurants in nearby Jerusalem after their day-trips to Bethlehem.

Unless the tour operators 'treat Bethlehem differently' and start giving their clients time off from their busy itineraries to explore the town centre, the papal visit will do nothing for his business, says a jewelry shop owner who prefers not to give his name.

But from a spiritual point of view, the visit has 'great' meaning to him, says the 70-year-old Palestinian, adding he feels 'honoured.'

He belongs to the town's Christian community, which has shrunk from a majority of 92 per cent before the 1948 Arab-Israeli war to a minority of about 35 per cent, due to decades of emigration to predominantly Christian countries abroad prompted by war, Israeli- Palestinian violence and a struggling economy.

Bethlehem's Christian mayor, Victor Batarseh, says he hopes the papal visit will encourage local Christians to return and more pilgrims and tourists to follow in his footsteps.

'We hope that this visit will bring us a hope for peace in the region,' he says from his office in the municipality, where preparations are in full swing.

Inside the Church of the Nativity, shared by Catholic, Greek- Orthodox and Armenian Christians who each have their own area and do not always get along, not everyone is equally excited by the visit of the spiritual leader of the largest of the three confessions.

'Here we live in a delicate situation because we have to stay in the same church. It's like three families living in one building, sharing the same kitchen,' explains Brother Alberto, 30.

'We have been waiting for this visit for years,' enthuses the Italian Franciscan.

But a Palestinian Armenian monk, who gives his name as Issa, 29, says he is excited too: 'He is not coming not for the Armenians, not for the Greek Orthodox, not for the Catholics, but for the Palestinian people.

'I am happy,' he explains.