Pope Francis has used his traditional Christmas message to urge “all people of all nations” to find courage in this holy year “to silence the sound of guns and overcome divisions”.
The Pope’s “Urbi et Orbi” – “To the City and the World” – speech serves as a summary of the miseries facing the world this year. As Christmas coincided with the start of the 2025 celebration 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 sound of guns and overcome divisions,” the pope told the crowd below from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The Pope invoked the Holy Door of St. Peter’s, which he opened on Christmas Eve to usher in the 2025 Jubilee, as representing God’s mercy, which “dissolves every knot; it tears down every wall of division; it dispels hatred and revenge”.
He called for the silencing of guns 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 serious” as well as Lebanon and Syria “at this most delicate time”.
Francis reiterated his demands for the release of the 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, who have been forced to flee their homes by “the ongoing armed conflict”. The Pope also remembered children who suffer from war and hunger, the elderly who live alone, those who flee their homelands, who have lost their jobs and are persecuted for their faith.
Pilgrims 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 Catholics to Rome.
Crossing the Holy Door is a way for the faithful to receive an indulgence, or forgiveness of sins during a jubilee, a once-in-a-quarter-century tradition dating back to the 1300s.
Pilgrims submitted to security checks before entering the Holy Door, amid fresh security fears after a deadly Christmas market attack in Germany. Many stopped to touch the door as they passed and made the sign of the cross as they entered the basilica dedicated to St Peter, the founder of the Roman Catholic Church.
“You feel so humbled when you walk in the door that once you walk through it’s almost like a release, a release of emotion,” said Blanca Martin, a pilgrim from San Diego. “… It’s almost like letting go of emotions, you feel that you can now let go and put everything in God’s hands. See I’m getting emotional. It’s just a beautiful experience.”
– A Chrismukkah miracle when Hanukkah and Christmas coincide
Hanukkah, Judaism’s eight-day festival of lights, begins this year on Christmas Day, which has happened only four times since 1900.
The calendar confluence has inspired some religious leaders to host interfaith gatherings, such as a Hanukkah party organized last week by several Jewish organizations in Houston, Texas, bringing together members of the city’s Latino and Jewish communities for latkes, the traditional potato pancake eaten on Hanukkah, topped with guacamole and salsa.
Although Hanukkah is intended as a lively, solemn holiday, the rabbis note that it is taking place this year as war rages in the Middle East and fears rise of widespread incidents of anti-Semitism. The holidays rarely overlap because the Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles and is not synchronized with the Gregorian calendar, which puts Christmas on December 25. The last time Hanukkah started on Christmas Day was in 2005.
– Iraqi Christians persist in their faith
Christians in the Nineveh Plains attended Christmas Mass on Tuesday at the Mar Georgis Church in central Telaskaf, Iraq, with security concerns for the future. “We feel that they will pull the rug out from under our feet at any moment. Our fate is unknown here,” said Telaskaf resident Bayda Nadhim.
The Christians of Iraq, whose presence there dates back almost to the time of Christ, belong to a number of rites and denominations. They once constituted a sizeable minority in Iraq, estimated at around 1.4 million.
But the community has steadily declined since the US-led invasion in 2003 and further in 2014 when the so-called Islamic State militant group swept through the area. The exact number of Christians left in Iraq is unclear, but they are believed to number in the hundreds of thousands.
– German celebrations dampened by market attack
German celebrations were overshadowed by a car attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday that left five people dead, including a nine-year-old boy, and 200 injured.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier rewrote his recorded Christmas Day address to address the attack, saying “there is sadness, pain, horror and incomprehension over what took place in Magdeburg”. He called on Germans to “stand together” and that “hatred and violence must not have the last word”.
A 50-year-old Saudi doctor who has practiced medicine in Germany since 2006 was arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and bodily harm. The suspect’s X account describes him as a former Muslim and is filled with anti-Islamic themes. He criticized the authorities for failing to combat the “Islamization of Germany” and expressed support for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
