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Christmas celebrations 2014

Christmas celebrations 2014

Pilgrims from across the world descended on Jesus's birthplace in Bethlehem to begin the global celebration of Christmas after a violence-plagued year brought suffering to many Middle Eastern Christians.Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve with a late-night Mass Wednesday in St. Peter's Basilica and a phone call to some Iraqi refugees forced to flee their homes by Muslim militants.Francis told refugees at the tent camp in Ankawa, a suburb of Irbil in northern Iraq, that they were like Jesus, forced to flee because there was no place for them. For Christians, Christmas marks the birth of Jesus in a Bethlehem barn manger, chosen because there was no room for his parents at an inn.