Bethlehem - St Catherine's Church

The exit from the Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem is by a second flight of steps leading into the north transept. A doorway in the north aisle leads into the neighboring church of St Catherine, built by Franciscans in 1881 on the site of an earlier church. A flight of steps in the south aisle leads down to the northern part of the cave system. To the left is the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, commemorating Herod's massacre of the children of Bethlehem; straight ahead is St Joseph's Chapel; and to the right are the Chapel of St Eusebius, the tombs of St Paula and her daughter Eustochium and the tomb of St Jerome, with whom the two women came to Bethlehem. On the rear wall is the stone bench on which the remains of St Jerome (d. 420) rested until their translation to Rome and burial in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. To the north is a room in which Jerome is said to have written the Vulgate.