Pope Francis has kicked off global Christmas celebrations with a lament – that Jesus’s message of peace is being drowned out by the “futile logic of war” in the very land he was born.
Israel’s deadliest-ever war on Gaza cast a shadow as the pontiff presided over the evening Mass on Sunday, attended by 6,500 people at St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
“Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world,” said the Catholic leader.
The 87-year-old pontiff said the real message of Christmas is peace and love, urging people not to be obsessed with worldly success and the “idolatry of consumerism”.
He spoke of “the all-too-human thread that runs through history: the quest for worldly power and might, fame and glory, which measures everything in terms of success, results, numbers and figures, a world obsessed with achievement”.
“Tonight, love changes history,” he said, draped in white robes.
Bethlehem, the biblical city in the occupied West Bank where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born in a manger more than 2,000 years ago, effectively cancelled the annual Christmas celebrations that normally draw thousands of tourists.
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