Pope Francis in his traditional Christmas address on Monday called for peace in Jerusalem and highlighted the plight of children scarred by conflict, having earlier urged the world’s Catholics not to ignore the conditions migrants face.
Tens of thousands of worshippers gathered at the Vatican to hear the pontiff’s fifth “Urbi et Orbi” (To the City and The World) message. It was delivered hours after a Christmas Eve Mass where he spoke on how migrants had been “driven from their land” because of leaders willing to shed “innocent blood.”
On Monday, Francis’s message sought “peace for Jerusalem and for all the Holy Land.”
“We see Jesus in the children of the Middle East who continue to suffer because of growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said.
“Let us pray that the will to resume dialogue may prevail between the parties and that a negotiated solution can finally be reached, one that would allow the peaceful coexistence of two states within mutually agreed and internationally recognised borders.”
The pontiff’s plea came as fresh tensions simmered in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Following Trump’s declaration, Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales said Sunday his country would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Trump’s announcement on December 6 triggered demonstrations and clashes, including in Bethlehem in the West Bank where Christians marked the birth of Jesus at a midnight Mass.
“May the Lord also sustain the efforts of all those in the international community inspired by good will to help that afflicted land to find, despite grave obstacles the harmony, justice and security that it has long awaited,” the pope said.
The pontiff also mentioned other global flashpoints such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, South Sudan and Venezuela, after stressing that the “winds of war are blowing in our world.”
“Let us pray that confrontation may be overcome on the Korean peninsula and that mutual trust may increase in the interest of the world as a whole,” the 81-year-old said.
Earlier, celebrating midnight Mass in the ancient town, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, used his homily to lambast the wars that “the Herods of today fight every day to become greater, to occupy more space.”