Pope Francis celebrated the traditional midnight mass this Sunday in St. Peter’s Basilica with the “heart” in Bethlehem, where, he said, “the Prince of Peace continues to be rejected by the losing logic of war, with the roar of weapons”.
“And our heart tonight is in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace continues to be rejected by the losing logic of war, with the roar of weapons that also today prevent him from finding an inn in the world,” the pope told the beginning of his homily, thus remembering the war in Gaza.
The pope dedicated the rest of the homily to the moment of Jesus’ birth when “a census of the entire earth” was being carried out, which, for Francis, “manifests, on the one hand, the all-too-human plot that runs through history: that of a world that seeks power and strength, fame and glory, where everything is measured with successes and results, with figures and numbers.
“It is the obsession with profit,” the pope said before the 6,500 people who packed the basilica, while thousands of others were in the square following the mass on screens.
Hours before midnight on Christmas in the Holy Land, Palestinian health authorities reported at least 70 dead in an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza. The Israeli military spokesman’s office said it was studying the report.
Israel reported the highest two-day death toll for its troops in more than a month.
Separately, the head of the Islamic Jihad militant group joined the talks in Cairo, a small sign at least that diplomacy was still alive.
But in Bethlehem, the Palestinian city in the West Bank where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born in a stable 2,000 years ago, clergy canceled traditional celebrations for the first time in living memory.