Archbishop of York ‘intimidated’ by Israeli militias

Stephen Cottrell said he was stopped at checkpoints and that militias told him he could not visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank.

During his Christmas Day sermon at York Minster, he said: “We have become – and really, I can think of no other way of putting it – we have become fearful of each other, and especially fearful of strangers, or just people who aren’t quite like us.

“We don’t seem to be able to see ourselves in them, and therefore we spurn our common humanity.”

The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, stands beneath the Advent wreath at York Minster (Image: Dylan Connell)

He described how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with “persecuted Palestinian communities” in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood nativity scene carving.

The piece showed a “large grey wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus, Mr Cottrell said.

The Church of England archbishop added: “It was sobering for me to see this wall for real on my visit to the Holy Land, and we were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank.

“But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we construct in our hearts and minds, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers – the strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people starved of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future – means that we are in danger of failing to welcome Christ when he comes.

“We don’t mind kneeling at the representations of the manger that we make in our churches and in our homes, like the beautiful nativity scene here in York Minster, but we don’t kneel and adore his presence in others, especially the poor and the excluded, the vulnerable and the abused.

“Worse, we often end up blaming the poor for their poverty the jobless for their lack of work, the homeless for their lack of shelter, and the refugee for the war that forced them from their home or the climate change that devastated their land.

“Even in the church which bears Christ’s name, we have not always put the needs of the vulnerable first.

“Therefore, this Christmas and especially at Christmas, we must find ways of balancing the needs of keeping everyone safe and yet at the same time seeing and adoring the face of Christ in the face of strangers, and especially in the faces of those who are in need; and then, dismantle, tear down the walls, which in keeping strangers out, keep Christ out as well.

“Then see and celebrate that in finding and seeing Christ and coming to the manger we see ourselves and our world as it is meant to be.  

“Please make no mistake about it, Christmas is worth celebrating.”