Christmas, amid growing sentiment against the Christian faith, BosNewsLife monitored Wednesday, December 25.
Analysts have linked the attacks to the United States war against terrorism, its plans to attack Iraq, and the growing influence of Muslims.
"From the cave of Bethlehem there rises today an urgent appeal to the world not to yield to mistrust, suspicion and discouragement, even though the tragic reality of terrorism feeds uncertainties and fears," said Pope John Paul II in his Christmas address.
He spoke as a grenade attack killed three girls worshipping at a church in Pakistan when a grenade attack rocked their Presbyterian church in the town of Daska, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of the capital Islamabad.
EASTERN INDIA
Earlier bombs exploded at a church in Eastern India, where a priest was injured and scores of others wounded as assailants threw bombs at a midnight Christmas service in a Catholic church.
The attack in the town Malipota near the India-Bangladesh border, 45 kilometres (apr. 20 miles) north-east of Calcutta, forced the priest and some of the 1200 worshippers inside to hand over their valuables, including money from the church safe and wrist watches.
Elsewhere in Asia, Christians gathered despite warnings of possible Islamic attacks.
INDONESIA THREATENED
In Indonesia, police seized 550 pounds of a fertilizer usable in explosives that they say was to be delivered to a fugitive bomber, The Associated Press (AP) news agency reported Wednesday December 25.
It quoted police officials as saying that the cache of ammonia nitrate seized in Palu, 930 miles (about 1500 kilometres) northeast of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta.
Investigators said the discovery was much bigger than the amount detonated in devastating blasts in Bali’s nightlife district on October 12 which killed 192 people, most of them Western tourists.
YUGOSLAVIA ATTACKS
And there were even troubles in former Communist countries, such as Yugoslavia. AP said about 30 hard-line Serb nationalists prevented dozens of worshippers from attending an Anglican Christmas Eve church service that was to be held in a Serbian Orthodox chapel in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital.
Even in Bethlehem, the place Christians regard as Jesus birthplace, Christmas was a sad affair. There were no signs of Christmas decorations, in what officials said was a protest against the occupation of the West Bank town by Israeli troops.
The army occupied Bethlehem in November a Palestinian suicide bomber from the town killed 11 Israelis.
PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS
It was the first time since 1994 that Christians there celebrated under the shadow of Israeli military control. Palestinian Christians had urged believers around the world to pray for what they see as the suffering church in the region.
Despite the hardships, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the highest-ranking Roman Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, urged Christians at the Church of the Nativity not to lose hope.
Hundreds of Christians from around the globe had a similar message Wednesday, December 25, for weary residents in Israel. But their Christmas carols were not able to silence the guns and other weapons used against Christians around the globe.
