Last weekend, Pope Frances visited a nativity scene that is on display in the Vatican that featured the baby Jesus presented as a Palestinian. This, of course, is controversial for a number of reasons, primarily due to the current conflict raging between Hamas terrorists in Gaza and the people of Israel. It makes you wonder why the head of the largest Christian denomination in the world, the Catholic Church, would take such a course of action knowing it could end up stoking fires of unrest and make the situation in the Middle East worse.
Perhaps he thought attending the event and essentially legitimizing the depiction of Jesus as a Palestinian would serve to be some sort of olive branch? Could he have hoped it would stress how Christ is a Savior for all people? There needs to be some further clarification.
Pope Francis inaugurates the new nativity scene called ”Betlehem 2024” in the Vatican
Looks like the Pope has also fallen for the absurd claim that Jesus was a Palestinian. pic.twitter.com/nVhsOW8vuL
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 7, 2024
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The exhibit in Paul VI Hall was created by Palestinian artists. The baby Jesus was swathed in a Palestinian Keffiyeh. Palestine Liberation Organization spokesperson Ramzi Khouri brought “warm greetings” from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and lauded Francis, telling of his “deep gratitude for the pope’s unwavering support for the Palestinian cause and his tireless efforts to end the war on Gaza and promote justice.”
Francis has expressed anti-Israel beliefs before, apparently labeling Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas massacre of more than 1200 people in Israel as immoral, saying, “A country that does these things — and I’m talking about any country — in a superlative way, these are immoral actions.” Francis has called for an investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza to see if they should be labeled “genocide.” On the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre, Francis issued a Letter to Catholics of the Middle East. In the letter, he cited John 8:44. “The verse chosen by the pontiff, a vitriolic accusation that the Jews ‘are from [their] father, the devil,’ has for centuries provoked and been used to justify Church hostility to Jews,” Tablet Magazine noted.
One of the reasons the Pope’s visit is so alarming is because it seems to lend credibility to one of the tactics being employed by modern-day Palestinians and those who support them, which is the rewriting of history, including the claim that Jesus was Palestinian and not Israeli. This is a claim that has been refuted very thoroughly since no state of Palestine has ever existed.
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Yet in 2013, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called Jesus “a Palestinian messenger,” and in 2019, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) shared a tweet that stated, “I was once asked by a relative who is a Palestinian Christian why the Christian right in America largely supports their oppression. ‘Don’t they know we’re Christian too? Do they even consider us human? Don’t they know Jesus was a Palestinian?’”
Peter Wehner has stated, “In fact, although many Palestinians today are Christians, Jesus himself was not one. He was born to Jewish parents in Judea, he lived as a Jew, and he died as a Jew. In the time of Jesus, Palestine didn’t exist—as a place, an entity, a word, or a concept. In the second century, Judea, which was the epicenter of large-scale Jewish rebellions against Roman rule, was renamed Syria Palaestina—later simply Palaestina—by the Romans.”
Still, we as believers in Christ should be hoping and praying for an end to conflict in the Middle East. Also pray for our brothers and sisters who are falling victim to severe persecution in the area, that they would remain faithful to Jesus and testify of His great salvation.