hehehe......Pope Francis on Sunday
offered a Christmas hope for peace in a world lacerated by war and
terrorism, urging people to remember migrants, refugees and those hit by
economic instability caused by “idolatry of money.”
Francis, marking the fourth Christmas season since his election in
2013, also urged Palestinians and Israelis, facing renewed tension after
a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements on occupied land, to
have the courage to put aside hate and revenge and “write a new page of
history.”
His traditional “Urbi et
Orbi” (to the city and the world) message was linked by a common thread
of war, violence and suffering at a time that should be defined by
harmony and peace symbolized by the infant Jesus.
“Peace to those who have
lost a person dear to them as a result of brutal acts of terrorism,
which have sown fear and death into the hearts of so many countries and
cities,” he told some 40,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
Security was heightened for
the Christmas weekend in Italy and at the Vatican after Italian police
killed the man believed to be responsible for the Berlin market truck
attack while other European cities kept forces on high alert.
“Today this message (of
peace) goes out to the ends of the earth to reach all peoples,
especially those scarred by war and harsh conflicts that seem stronger
than the yearning for peace,” he said, speaking in Italian from the
central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
He called for peace in
Syria, urging immediate assistance to the exhausted population of the
city of Aleppo, which Syrian government forces recaptured last week
after four years of devastating fighting with rebels.
“It is time for weapons to
be still forever (in Syria), and the international community to actively
seek a negotiated solution, so that civil co-existence can be restored
in the country,” he said.
Francis, the first Latin
American pope, also said Christmas should inspire everyone to help the
less fortunate, including migrants, refugees and those swept up by
social and economic upheavals.
“Peace to the peoples who
suffer because of the economic ambitions of the few, because of the
sheer greed and the idolatry of money, which leads to slavery,” he said.
At his Christmas eve Mass on
Saturday, Francis said the feast had been “taken hostage” by dazzling
materialism that puts God in the shadows. On Sunday, he also called for
an end to “fundamentalist terrorism” in Nigeria, a reference to Boko
Haram, which has killed 15,000 people and displaced more than two
million during a seven-year insurgency to create an Islamic state. .
Francis further appealed for
an end to tensions between the government and opposition in Venezuela,
for harmony in Colombia, which recently ended a civil war with FARC
guerrillas, and an end to strife on the Korean peninsula and in Myanmar.
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