Pope denounces violence against children in Gaza

Pope Francis said children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the “little Jesuses of today” and that Israeli strikes there were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians.

Francis also called the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants “abominable” and again appealed for the release of around 100 hostages still being held in Gaza.

Speaking from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to thousands of people in the square below, he took another swipe at the armaments industry, saying it ultimately controlled the “puppet-strings of war”.

The 87-year-old Pope, celebrating the 11th Christmas of his pontificate, called for an end to conflicts, political, social or military, in places including Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and he defended the rights of migrants around the world.

“How many innocents are being slaughtered in our world! In their mothers’ wombs, in odysseys undertaken in desperation and in search of hope, in the lives of all those little ones whose childhoods have been devastated by war. They are the little Jesuses of today,” he said.

He gave particular attention to the Holy Land, including Gaza, where, according to Palestinian health officials, Israeli air strikes killed at least 78 people in one of the besieged enclave’s deadliest nights of Israel’s 11-week-old battle with Hamas.

Pope Francis also highlighted the central role women have played in salvation history and that they still have for bringing peace to the world of the 21st century.

Addressing a congregation of seven thousand Catholics from all continents who gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica on New Year’s Day, including cardinals, bishops, women and men religious, lay people, and ambassadors from the 184 countries that have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, Francis spoke about the role God gave to women in the history of the world, and the important role women have to play today in both the church and society.

He began by reminding them, “God becomes man, and he does so through a woman, Mary.

She is the means chosen by God, the culmination of that long line of individuals and generations that ‘drop by drop’ prepared for the Lord’s coming into the world. She stands at the very heart of the mystery of time. It pleased God to turn history around through her, the woman.”

“The Mother and Child mark a new creation, a new beginning,” the pope said; “the Lord, a tiny child in his mama’s arms, has united himself forever to our humanity, to the point that it is no longer only ours, but his as well.”

Pope Francis, speaking in a strong voice after recovering from pneumonia, said: “The church needs Mary in order to recover her own feminine face” which, he said, means making “space for women and [being] ‘generative’ through a pastoral ministry marked by concern and care, patience and maternal courage.” His words echoed the increasingly pressing call that has come from Catholics around the world through the synods on the family, the Amazon, and the ongoing Synod on Synodality, asking church leadership to open up greater spaces and roles of responsibility for women in the church of the 21st century.”

He also called on those in St. Peter’s Square and worldwide to pray for peace in countries suffering from war, and especially “the martyred Ukraine, Palestine and Israel.” He also asked them to pray for the bishops and priests in Nicaragua “who have been deprived of their liberty in recent days.” He expressed his closeness to them, and to the entire church and people of Nicaragua, and appealed “for a dialogue that can overcome the problems.”

source: THE NATION