NPR News: 12-25-2024 6PM EST

38.322 - 62.983 Emily Fang

At Christmas Mass, in the Catholic section of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, worshippers and visitors alike crowded into the pews. Nearby, nuns and pilgrims chanted prayers and sang songs in an underground grotto in the church's Greek Orthodox section. This grotto was believed to be the cave where Jesus Christ was born. But the church and manger square in front of it was relatively empty.