Pope’s lament: Icy winds of battle buffet humanity at Christmas

Pope Francis used his Christmas message on Sunday to lament the “icy winds of battle” buffeting humanity and to make an impassioned plea for a right away finish to the preventing in Ukraine, a battle he decried as “mindless”.

Francis delivered the standard Urbi et Orbi speech from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to tens of 1000’s of vacationers, pilgrims and residents of Rome crowded into St Peter’s Sq..

Francis additionally cited long-running conflicts within the Center East, together with within the Holy Land, “the place in current months violence and confrontations have elevated, bringing loss of life and harm of their wake”. As well as, he prayed for a long-lasting truce in Yemen and for reconciliation in Iran and Myanmar.

He lamented that on Christmas, the “path of peace” is blocked by social forces that embody “attachment to energy and cash, pleasure, hypocrisy, falsehood”.

“Certainly, we should acknowledge with sorrow that … the icy winds of battle proceed to buffet humanity,” Francis mentioned.

“If we would like it to be Christmas, the start of Jesus and of peace, allow us to look to Bethlehem and ponder the face of the kid who’s born for us,” he mentioned. “And in that small and harmless face, allow us to see the faces of all these youngsters who, in all places on this planet, lengthy for peace.”

Francis urged the trustworthy to recollect the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who had been with out electrical energy or heating due to Russian assaults on vitality infrastructure, in addition to the hundreds of thousands extra residing as refugees overseas or displaced inside their nation because the 24 February invasion ordered by Vladimir Putin.

“Allow us to additionally see the faces of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, who’re experiencing this Christmas at nighttime and chilly, removed from their properties as a result of devastation attributable to 10 months of battle,” the pontiff mentioned.

The pope prayed that the Lord will “enlighten the minds of those that have the ability to silence the thunder of weapons and put a right away finish to this mindless battle!”

“On this present day, as we sit round a well-spread desk, might we not avert our gaze from Bethlehem, a city whose title means ‘home of bread,’ however consider all these, particularly the youngsters, who go hungry whereas large quantities of meals day by day go to waste and sources are being spent on weapons.”

“The battle in Ukraine has additional aggravated this example, placing total peoples prone to famine, particularly in Afghanistan and within the international locations of the Horn of Africa,” Francis mentioned.