Pope makes plea for peace
VATICAN CITY: Thousands of people were set to gather Sunday in St Peter’s Square to hear Pope Francis deliver his Christmas Day message, where he was expected to offer prayers for wartorn Ukraine.
The head of the Catholic Church will address the faithful from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, before delivering the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing (“to the city and the world”).
The 86-year-old is expected to focus on the brutal conflict in Ukraine in his speech, which is broadcast on television and radio around the world.
Pope Francis has called for peace ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, condemning the war but seeking to maintain a delicate dialogue with Moscow.
However, he has been criticised in some quarters for not being more explicit in blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He has focused on the human toll of the war, weeping earlier this month as he offered prayers for a “tormented” Ukraine.
In an interview published at the end of November in the US Jesuit magazine America, the Argentine pontiff denounced the cruelty of Russia’s troops in Ukraine, drawing a formal protest from Moscow.
On Saturday evening, the pope led the traditional Christmas Eve mass at St Peter’s Basilica with some 7,000 people attending, according to the Vatican.
Using a wheelchair as he continues to struggle with knee pain, the pope prayed for “the children devoured by wars, poverty and injustice” and lamented that “men hungry for power and money swallow up their loved ones, their brothers”.
He called on people to “abandon the warmth of worldliness” and “rediscover the meaning of Christmas” in the face of “consumerism”, advocating for a Church that serves the poor.
Pope Francis on Saturday also called for dialogue to counter the isolation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, as billions around the world marked a second Christmas under the shadow of the coronavirus.
An explosion in cases driven by the rise of the Omicron variant has tainted longed-for family by the prospect of yet more Covid-19 restrictions.
In his traditional Urbi and Orbi Christmas Day blessing, the pope told those gathered in St Peter’s Square that “our capacity for social relationships is sorely tried; there is a growing tendency to withdraw, to do it all by ourselves, to stop making an effort to encounter others and do things together.
“On the international level, too, there is the risk of avoiding dialogue,” said the 85-year-old Argentine pontiff.
“Yet only those paths can lead to the resolution of conflicts and to lasting benefits for all.”
In a time of pandemic, Pope Francis also asked God to “open hearts to ensure that necessary medical care — and vaccines in particular — are provided to those peoples who need them most”.
Around 4,000 people followed the ceremony on giant screens installed outside as the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics prepared to mark the holiday celebrating birth of Christ.