Lucy Talgieh, the deputy mayor of Bethlehem, attended Pope Leo’s December 17 general audience and expressed gratitude for the Pontiff’s peace appeals.
“In all of us there is the desire for an end to the armed conflicts that only cause pain and death,” Talgieh, a Catholic, told the Vatican newspaper. “We can only be grateful to the Pope for always showing closeness with his constant appeals for peace for this and other suffering lands, in the never-fading hope that Christians will increasingly open their hearts to the love of God and their neighbor, as Leo XIV reiterated in his greetings in Arabic.”