Journalist-turned-filmmaker follows in her family's filmmaking footsteps with an Academy Award-nominated documentary about Evangelical Christians.

Christians in the Middle East should be "courageous and steadfast" and avoid the temptation to join an exodus that has seen their population sharply decline across the region in recent years, Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday.

For nearly two thousand years, the Middle East has been home to many Christian communities, especially in Palestine where their ancestors were the original followers of Jesus of Nazareth, but also in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. However, with the increasing Islamization of the region and most especially in recent years as the result of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the numbers of indigenous Christians have dwindled.

The spiritual leader of the Anglican church has written an article criticizing the U.S. and British governments for their roles in the Iraq war.

Every year at this time, Christians around the world turn their attention to Bethlehem, a small city in the West Bank where, according to Christian tradition, Jesus Christ was born. Christians have lived in Bethlehem for centuries, but now many are leaving. A bloody Palestinian uprising over the past few years and the construction of a massive security barrier around the city have diminished the Christmas spirit from Bethlehem.