BIRTH OF JESUS GAVE BETHLEHEM ITS UNIQUE IDENTITY

VATICAN CITY, FEB 19, 1999 (VIS) - Members of the organizing committee of the International Forum "Bethlehem 2000" were welcomed this morning by the Pope, who stressed that "it is the birth of Christ ... which gives Bethlehem its unique place in the mind and heart of the world."

"The Gospel of Saint Luke," he added, "reports that at the birth of Jesus angels sang of peace on earth to all people of good will. And although Bethlehem's history since then has often been marked by violence, the city still stands as a promise of peace and an assurance that the human hope for peace is not vain."

John Paul II remarked that "the Great Jubilee which will celebrate the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem invites us to look forward in hope to a world in which peace will be secure. We must all work for a future in which there will be no threat to peace from among the worshippers of the one God, from any who bear the name of Christian or Jew or Muslim."

"The promise of peace made at Bethlehem," he concluded, "will become a reality when the dignity and the rights of human beings made in the image of God are acknowledged and respected."

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