On Christmas, Pope urges nations to silence arms, ‘overcome divisions’ – National

Pope Francis in his traditional Christmas message on Wednesday urged “all people of all nations” to find courage in this Holy Year “to silence the sounds of weapons and overcome divisions” that plague the world, from the Middle East to Ukraine, Africa to Asia.

The Pope’s address “Urbi et Orbi” – “To the city and the world” – serves as a summary of the misery that the world is facing this year. As Christmas coincided with the beginning of the celebration of the Holy Year 2025 that he dedicated to hope, Francis called for broad reconciliation, “even (with) our enemies.”

“I invite each individual, and all people of all nations… to become pilgrims of hope, to silence the sounds of weapons and to overcome divisions,” said the Pope from the loggia of the St. Peter’s Basilica to the crowd of people below.

The Pope called the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, which he opened on Christmas Eve to launch the 2025 jubilee, as representative of God’s grace, which “unties every knot; it tears down every wall of division; it banishes hatred and the spirit of revenge.”

He called for a ceasefire in war-torn Ukraine and the Middle East, singling out Christian communities in Israel and the Palestinian territories, “especially in Gaza where the humanitarian situation is extremely difficult”, as well as Lebanon and Syria “at this delicate time.”

Francis repeated his calls for the release of hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

He cited a deadly outbreak of measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the suffering of the people of Myanmar, forced to flee their homes by “the ongoing armed conflict.” The Pope also thought of children who suffer from war and hunger, the elderly who live in solitude, those who fled their homeland, who have lost their jobs and are persecuted for their faith.

Pilgrims were lined up on Christmas Day to walk through the great Holy Door at the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica, as the Jubilee is expected to bring some 32 million Catholic faithful to Rome.

Passing through the Holy Door is one way in which the faithful in a jubilee can receive remission, or forgiveness for sins, a tradition that occurs once every quarter century dating back to 1300.

Pilgrims undergo security checks before entering the Holy Door, amid fresh security fears after a deadly Christmas market attack in Germany. Many paused to touch the door as they passed and made the sign of the cross upon entering the basilica dedicated to St. Peter, the founder of the Roman Catholic Church.

“You feel so humbled when you walk through the door, that once you’re through it’s almost like a release, a release of emotions,” said Blanca Martin, a pilgrim from San Diego. “… It’s almost like a release of emotions, you feel like you can let go now and put everything in God’s hands. I’m getting emotional. It’s just a wonderful experience.”

Hanukkah, Judaism’s eight-day festival of lights, begins this year on Christmas Day, which has only happened four times since 1900.

The calendar confluence has inspired some religious leaders to host interfaith gatherings, such as a Hanukkah party hosted last week by several Jewish organizations in Houston, Texas, that brought together members of the city’s Latino and Jewish communities. bring for latkes, the traditional potato pancake eaten on Hanukkah, topped with guacamole and salsa.

While Hanukkah is meant to be an uplifting, festive holiday, rabbis note that it is taking place this year as wars rage in the Middle East and fears rise over widespread incidents of anti-Semitism. The holidays rarely overlap because the Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles and is out of sync with the Gregorian calendar, which puts Christmas on December 25. The last time Hanukkah started on Christmas Day was in 2005.

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Christians in Nineveh Plains attended Christmas Mass at the Mar Georgis Church in central Telaskaf, Iraq on Tuesday, with security concerns about the future. “We feel that they will pull the rug from under our feet at any moment. Our fate here is unknown,” said Bayda Nadhim, a resident of Telaskaf.

The Christians of Iraq, whose presence there goes back almost to the time of Christ, belong to a number of rites and denominations. They once formed a large minority in Iraq, estimated at around 1.4 million.

But the community has steadily declined since the 2003 invasion by the United States and continued in 2014 when the Islamic State militant group swept through the area. The exact number of Christians left in Iraq is unclear, but they are thought to number several hundred thousand.

German celebrations were marred by a car attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday that killed five people, including a 9-year-old boy, and injured 200 people. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote his recorded Christmas Day speech to address the attack, saying that “there is sadness, pain, horror and incomprehension about what took place in Magdeburg.” He urged the Germans to “stand together” and that “hate and violence should not have the last word.”

A 50-year-old Saudi doctor who had been practicing medicine in Germany since 2006 was arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and bodily harm. The suspect’s X account describes himself as a former Muslim and is full of anti-Islamic themes. He criticized authorities for not fighting “the Islamification of Germany” and expressed support for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Barry reported from Milan. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem, Rashid Yehya in Teleskaf, Iraq and David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany contributed to this report.

& copy 2024 The Canadian Press