Iraqi Christians crowd into churches to celebrate Christmas
A story I didn’t really think I’d see - that of Iraqi Christians celebrating Christmas openly, and with the support of local Sunni and Shia Muslim religiously leaders.
BAGHDAD (AP) - Thousands of Iraqi Christians made their way to church through checkpoints and streets lined with blast walls, many drawing hope from a lull in violence to celebrate Christmas Mass in numbers unthinkable a year ago.
(snip)
“We did not celebrate last year, but this year we have security and we feel better,” said Rasha Ghaban, one of many women at the small Church of the Holy Family in Karradah, a mainly Shiite district in downtown Baghdad where many Christians live. “We hope our future will be better, God willing.”
(snip)
A coordinated bombing campaign in 2004 targeted churches in the Iraqi capital, and anti-Christian violence also flared last September after Pope Benedict XVI made comments perceived to be against Islam.
But this year, with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha coming just before Christmas, Iraq has been living through some of the most peaceful moments since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, leader of the ancient Chaldean Catholic Church and Iraq’s first cardinal, celebrated Mass before about 2,000 people in the Mar Eliya Church the eastern New Baghdad neighborhood of the capital.
“Iraq is a bouquet of flowers of different colors, each color represents a religion or ethnicity but all of them have the same scent,” the 80-year-old Delly told the congregation.
Muslim clerics—both Sunni and Shiite—also attended the service in a sign of unity.
“May Iraq be safe every year, and may our Christian brothers be safe every year,” Shiite cleric Hadi al-Jazail told AP Television News outside the church. “We came to celebrate with them and to reassure them.”
William Jalal, a 39-year old father of three attending Mass at Mar Eliya, said this Christmas was clearly different.
“We didn’t celebrate like this in the past two years as we were holding limited celebrations for relatives in an atmosphere filled with fear,” said Jalal, a cook in one of Baghdad’s social clubs. “Now we feel better as we see all these security forces in the streets to protect us.”
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Assyrian Christians, Catholic, Christians, Christmas, Iraq, Muslim, Shiite, Sunni, terrorists 
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