Vatican City
Christmas revelers around the world donned red and white Santa hats, served meals to the homeless and lit candles on Wednesday, as Pope Francis launched the global holiday celebration with a somber Mass at the Vatican.
At St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis used his Christmas Eve Mass to urge Christians to think “about wars, about children being machine-gunned, about bombs on schools or hospitals” as Christmas this year is once again held in the shadow of the Israeli war. Concerning Hamas and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
His statements come just days after he condemned the “cruelty” of the Israeli strikes, which sparked objections from Israeli diplomats.
Francis is scheduled to deliver his traditional Christmas blessing, Orbi and Orbi (for the city and the world), at noon on Wednesday, while in the city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, in the city of Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, they celebrate the holiday. The sound is muted.
For the second year in a row, the city of Bethlehem has abandoned the giant Christmas tree and elaborate decorations that usually attract crowds of tourists, and has made do with just some festive lights.
Bethlehem Mayor Antoun Salman told AFP, “This year our joy was limited.”
Prayers, including the famous midnight mass in the Church of the Nativity, will still be held in the presence of the Latin Patriarch of the Catholic Church, but celebrations will be of a more strictly religious nature.
Patriarch Bishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa told a small crowd on Tuesday that he had just returned from Gaza, where he “saw everything destroyed, poverty, disasters.”
“But I’ve also seen life – they don’t give up. So you shouldn’t give up either. Never.”
In Manger Square, in the center of the Palestinian city, a group of scouts organized a show that broke the silence.
“Our children want to play and laugh,” read a sign carried by one of them, amid whistles and cheers from his friends.
Other banners read: “We want life, not death” and “Stop genocide in Gaza now!”
