BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian officials on Thursday closed the storied Church of the Nativity in the biblical city of Bethlehem indefinitely over fears of the new coronavirus, weeks ahead of the busy Easter holiday season.

The announcement by the Palestinian tourism ministry threatened to devastate the vital tourism industry in the town where Jesus is believed to have been born. The spread of the virus across the Middle East has already disrupted worship at other major holy sites.

Iran, the epicenter of the virus in the region, announced that it would set up checkpoints to limit travel between major cities and urged citizens to reduce their use of paper money to help slow the outbreak, which has killed at least 107 people in the country.

Iranian state TV also reported that Hossein Sheikholeslam, a 68-year-old diplomat who was an adviser to Iran’s foreign minister, died of the coronavirus.

In addition, Iran’s state-run media said that Mohammad Sadr, a member of the country’s Expediency Council and a senior adviser to the foreign minister, has been infected. Another member of the council, which advises Iran’s supreme leader, died earlier this week after falling ill with the new virus, which has sickened a number of Iranian officials.

The Church of the Nativity was closed after suspicions that four Palestinians had caught the virus, prompting a flurry of measures that included banning all tourists from the Israeli-occupied West Bank for an unspecified amount of time and shutting down other places of worship in Bethlehem for two weeks.

The Palestinian health ministry later said a total of seven Palestinians from Bethlehem have tested positive for the virus, the first cases reported in the Palestinian territories.

It said the seven worked at a hotel where a group of Greek tourists stayed during a tour of Israel and the Palestinian territories in late February. The tourists tested positive for the virus after returning to Greece.

Built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born in a manger, the Church of the Nativity is one of several tourist and holy sites to shut their doors over concerns about the virus, which has infected tens of thousands of people and killed more than 3,000 globally.

Just before 4 p.m., a bearded clergyman walked outside and locked the church’s wooden door with a large key. A team of workers dressed in white overalls arrived with jugs of cleaning materials and walked through a side entrance to disinfect the building. Tariq al-Ali, one of the workers, said it was the second time his team disinfected the church.

“We have disinfected many institutions in the past week. We are under pressure,” he said.

Saif Saboh, a Palestinian tour guide, said a number of groups had canceled visits in recent days. He said he has stopped shaking hands or getting too close to tourists. “I’m terrified,” he said. “Any tourist could be infected.”

The virus has disrupted Muslim worship across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia banned pilgrimages to the holy city of Mecca, while Iran has canceled Friday’s Islamic prayers in major cities. Iraq canceled Friday prayers in Karbala, where a weekly sermon is delivered on behalf of the country’s top Shiite cleric.

The Church of the Nativity receives some 10,000 tourists a day, according to Palestinian officials, and is expected to welcome tens of thousands of visitors during the Easter season.

Elias al-Arja, the head of the Bethlehem hotel owners union, angrily accused authorities of caving in to panic. “This will cause huge damage to the economy. We have 3,000 workers in the tourist sector and they will all go home. Who is going to feed their families?” he said.

Anton Suleiman, the mayor of Bethlehem, acknowledged the economic impact, but said “public safety is the most important thing to us.”

In Iran, Health Minister Saeed Namaki announced his country’s latest restrictions, saying schools and universities will remain closed through Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on March 20. “We will strictly control comings and goings,” he said.

More than 3,740 cases have been confirmed across the Middle East. Iran and Italy have the world’s highest death tolls outside of China.

The U.S. official focused on Iran, Brian Hook, said Thursday the U.S. offered humanitarian assistance to Iran to help them deal with the outbreak, but “the regime rejected the offer.”

Hook, speaking at a news conference in Paris, also said the U.S. has asked Iran to release American detainees “on medical furlough” over fears the coronavirus may be infesting the country’s prisons.

Israeli officials said they were working closely with their Palestinian counterparts to contain the virus. COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian matters, said it had delivered 250 test kits to the Palestinians and was coordinating joint training sessions for Israeli and Palestinian medical workers.

For the time being, other major places of worship in the Holy Land remained open. Israeli officials said there were no special precautions at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, though hand sanitizing stations were placed at the site.

“In this time of distress, there is nothing more appropriate than coming to pray at the Western Wall,” said Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi who oversees the site.

The nearby Al Aqsa mosque compound was expected to welcome 50,000 worshipers for Friday prayers. The Islamic Waqf, which administers the site, said the buildings have been disinfected and the sermon would be brief.

Israel, which has 17 confirmed virus cases, has taken strict measures in a bid to stave off an outbreak, including banning the entry of visitors from around 10 countries.

On Thursday, German airline Lufthansa said it and its Austrian and Swiss subsidiaries were canceling flights to and from Israel for three weeks starting Sunday because of the restrictions.

Israeli airline El Al, which has canceled dozens of flights to countries with outbreaks, announced Wednesday that it was laying off 1,000 employees.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government will set up an “emergency cash flow assistance fund” for businesses deemed essential to the economy. It was not immediately clear if that would apply to El Al.

Earlier on Thursday, the United Arab Emirates warned citizens and foreign residents not to travel abroad, The country is home to two major long-haul airlines, Emirates and Etihad, which have encouraged staff to take time off as foreign travel has dropped due to the virus.

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Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Josef Federman and Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem, and Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.

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Amid the international community’s lack of response to the ongoing severe persecution of Christians in the Middle East, the small nation of Hungary is spending millions of dollars in the region to help rebuild churches and Christian communities.

This central European country is home to less than 1% of the world’s population, but it has spent at least $40 million since 2017 helping persecuted Christians, according to Fox News, which spoke to Peter Szijjarto, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

“We give the money directly to the churches, to the church communities. We have rebuilt 33 torn-down Christian churches in Lebanon, for example,” Szijjarto was quoted as saying.

Hungary, which affirms its Christian foundations in its constitution that was ratified in 2011, has also rebuilt towns and schools for the Christian communities in the Middle East. Hungarian funds have been used to rebuild 1,000 homes on the Ninevah Plains in Iraq, according to Catholic News Service.

“Under current circumstances, when we are faced with tremendous historic challenges ahead of us, ahead of the European Union, someone has to speak openly,” Szijjarto said. “And this road is taken by us currently.”

Last month, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban acknowledged in a speech that the Christian culture was under attack. “A whole culture is under organized attack, our culture and our civilization. Not only in Africa, not only in the Middle East, but here, too, in Europe, the land of, so far, the most successful Christian culture.”

Orban, who is serving for a third consecutive term, has been criticized for being vocal about conservative issues.

Szijjarto defended him in his interview with Fox News. “If a nation is not proud of its national identity, or if it does not stick to historic cultural and religious heritage, then that country and that nation will not be strong for sure because it loses the anchor,” he said.

“In global politics, the fact that Christians are being persecuted is being ignored,” Szijjarto said last September, according to CNS. He said his government was “fighting against the perception that Christianophobia would be the last acceptable form of discrimination.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Anugrah Kumar

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Parents are speaking out against the reboot of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” for featuring a recurring same-sex couple.

The PBS Kids series, which is also on Amazon Prime, has introduced two mommies as the parents of a character named Samantha, a friend of the main character, Emily Elizabeth.

“Discussion of such controversial topics and lifestyle choices should be left up to parents. PBS KIDS should not introduce the LGBTQ lifestyle to young children,” One Million Moms, a division of the American Family Association, stated recently. “PBS KIDS should stick to entertaining and providing family friendly programming, instead of pushing an agenda.”

The two mommies were first seen in an episode titled “The Big Red Tomato/Dogbot.”

The introduction of a lesbian couple comes as PBS’ “Sesame Street” announced that it will be featuring Billy Porter, an openly gay actor known for his “gender-fluid” fashion, in the upcoming season of the series. The actor posted photos of himself on the show’s set, wearing a tuxedo dress.

Porter defended his appearance and his fashion choice on the kids show, arguing that children who have been bullied “desperately need to see someone like me, being their authentic selves on mainstream media.”

PBS also stirred controversy last year when it featured a gay wedding — Mr. Ratburn getting married to another man.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Sheryl Lynn

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A 22-year-old Christian man was beaten to death in Pakistan’s Punjab province by men who accused him of “contaminating” water in a well owned by a Muslim farmer. 

Sources have told human rights organizations that Christian laborer Saleem Masih from the Kasur district of Punjab was chained, dragged, and beaten with rods by a landowner and four other men around Feb. 25.

Masih died from his injuries on Feb. 28 at Lahore General Hospital, according to the U.K.-based Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement.

Masih’s older brother told the Union of Catholic Asia News that Masih was tortured for two hours for washing himself off in a tube well owned by a Muslim landowner who has been identified as Sher Doga.

“We have to take a bath after unloading husk from a trolley. Even the cold weather doesn’t matter. The itching from chaff, stuck in our clothes, disturbs our sleep,” Nadeem Masih was quoted as saying.

“They threatened him with dire consequences when he cleaned himself after unloading a vehicle last week. They accused him of desecrating their water. He was already being warned about making TikTok videos in farms belonging to Muslim landlords.”

Masih was discovered lying in Doga’s cattle farm with serious injuries on Feb. 25 in Bhagiana village, where many Christians work as farm laborers.

Nadeem Masih said local women informed him that they heard Masih moaning in pain around 7 a.m.

“He told the police about being chained, beaten and electrocuted by four men,” Nadeem Masih said. “They rolled a thick iron rod over his entire body. He was like a crushed sugar cane from a juice machine.”

Although Masih was taken to a hospital for surgery, he died from organ failure.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Samuel Smith

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A video of a drag performer provocatively dancing in front of a young girl has drawn outrage from social media users who say it’s child abuse.

The Christian Post reports the video was uploaded to the short-form mobile platform TikTok on Feb. 9 and was later removed by the social media company. Copies have since been found at various sites online as well as on other social media platforms. 

The drag performer in the video was identified by the Daily Caller website as Tynomi Banks. Banks, a biological male, identifies as female, according to the drag performer’s Facebook page.

The incident occurred at a “drag brunch” held at a Toronto, Canada restaurant, according to the CP.  In the video, Banks is wearing jean shorts, exposing his buttocks along with a black long-sleeved leotard. He crawls across the floor suggestively towards a little girl seated in a chair before he hands her what multiple media outlets described as a dollar bill before touching the girl’s hair and hugging her. Banks then dances to the song “Lose Control.”

Meanwhile, all of the adults in the room cheer and seem to watch approvingly of the performance as the little girl looks around the room.

“Revolting, vile, evil, infuriating. All those words and many others come to mind,” commented Matt Walsh, a conservative commentator and author with The Daily Wire, speaking about the video in a Facebook post on Monday. 

“This is child abuse. And everybody, all the adults in that room in that video should be going to prison. In a sane and just society, what you would see in that video at the end are a bunch of police officers breaking the door down and cuffing those people,” he continued.

Many Twitter users also expressed their outrage.  

One user identified as DarkSky wrote, “If the kid’s parents did this at home, CPS would get involved and take that poor kid away. This is disgusting.”

Another user wrote, “The little girl looks so uncomfortable. Why would you as a mom, expose your innocent daughter to this?!?”

And another user reminded everyone that what they are seeing in the video is child abuse.

“This is an adult entertainer performing a sexual dance to a toddler,” wrote the user. “Every adult that is laughing and clapping is engaging in child abuse.”

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One of the most poignant moments in the new Netflix film The Two Popes is a moment of supreme exasperation. The individuals at the center of the film — soon-to-be-retired Pope Benedict XVI and soon-to-be-Pope Jorge Bergolio (now Francis) — have spent the past few minutes disagreeing on every issue facing the Catholic church: homosexuality, divorce, celibacy, the environment and the sexual misconduct of priests. At last, Cardinal Bergolio says, mournfully, “It seems to me that we are no longer a part of this world. We do not belong to it. We are not connected.” Pope Benedict XVI considers this, and then, quoting Anglican priest William Inge, replies, “A church that marries the spirit of this age —” Bergolio interrupts him with the rest of the quotation: “—will be widowed in the next.”

To me, this scene perfectly encapsulates the debate raging around the issue of celibacy in the Catholic Church. To those outside of it, the practice seems archaic and baffling. Why shouldn’t priests be allowed to marry? What good is it doing? Is it actually doing harm? Even to some within Catholicism, it seems like a superfluous practice, especially when stacked against problems with far more impact. And yet, there are those within the Church who believe that this issue cannot and should not be compromised on. To change the practice of celibacy would alter centuries of tradition and the work of generations of God-fearing servants.

Should we change simply because the world says we should?

Pope Benedict XVI believes the Church should not, and he is making his view abundantly clear through a series of arguments in the French newspaper Le Figaro and in a newly published book. In 2013, after becoming the only pope since 1415 to retire, Pope Benedict promised that he would stay “hidden from the world.” However, he has broken his silence to argue for the “great significance” of celibacy and calling it a “truly essential” standard for priesthood. In the book, co-authored with Cardinal Robert Sarah, Pope Benedict states definitively that “​the call to follow Jesus is not possible without this sign of freedom and of renunciation of all commitments.”

The sudden outspokenness of the former pope is seen by many as a response to Pope Francis considering a change in the Church’s position on celibacy. Last year, stemming from a shortage of priests in the Amazon region, church leaders from South America requested that married men be allowed to be ordained. Pope Francis is apparently working on a document that tackles this issue, which has made Catholic hardliners nervous. In the past, Pope Francis has expressed a willingness to reconsider the practice of celibacy. In 2014, in a conversation with journalists, Pope Francis admitted that, while he did consider celibacy “a rule of life that I greatly appreciate,” he did not view the practice as “​a dogma of faith,” so “the door is always open.”

The Catholic Church, like any political institution, has always been at war with itself, the traditionalists and the reformers duking it out behind closed doors. What is unique about this situation, though, is that each camp has a champion out in the open, and both have sat on the Chair of St. Peter. For some, the real issue at hand is that there are two living popes, commenting on and providing conflicting guidance for Catholics around the world.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Hayden Royster

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