POPE LAMENTS WAR IN CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
Pope Francis used his Christmas message Sunday to lament the “icy winds of war” buffeting humanity and to make an impassioned plea for an immediate end to the fighting in Ukraine, a 10month-old conflict he decried as “senseless.”
At noon in Rome, Francis delivered the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (Latin for “‘to the city and to the world”) speech from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
On a sunny day, with the midday temperature reaching about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, warm for a Roman winter, some 70,000 tourists, pilgrims and residents of the city packed St. Peter’s Square to listen to the pontiff and to receive his blessing.
Francis also cited longrunning conflicts in the Middle East, including in the Holy Land, “where in recent months violence and confrontations have increased, bringing death and injury in their wake.”
He lamented that on Christmas, the “path of peace” is blocked by social forces that include “attachment to power and money, pride, hypocrisy, falsehood.”
“Indeed, we must acknowledge with sorrow that, even as the Prince of Peace is given to us, the icy winds of war continue to buffet humanity,” Francis said.
“If we want it to be Christmas, the birth of Jesus and of peace, let us look to Bethlehem and contemplate the face of the child who is born for us,” he said. “And in that small and innocent face, let us see the faces of all those children who, everywhere in the world, long for peace.”
Francis urged the faithful to remember the millions of Ukrainians who were without electricity or heating Sunday because of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, as well as the millions more living as refugees abroad or displaced within their country since the Feb. 24 invasion ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The pope prayed that the Lord will “enlighten the minds of those who have the power to silence the thunder of weapons and put an immediate end to this senseless war!”