In the opulent St. Peter's Basilica, the first U.S. Pope, Leo XIV, addressed around 6,000 people in his first Christmas Mass as pontiff
He struck a solemn tone, and recalling the birth story of Jesus, he reminded the faithful that refusing to help the poor and vulnerable is comparable to rejecting God altogether
To refuse one is to refuse the other. Yet where there is room for the human person, there is room for God
Even a stable can become more sacred than a temple, and the womb of the Virgin Mary become the Ark of the New Covenant
Outside, hundreds of worshippers watched on screens under the pouring rain as the large cathedral was over capacity
A critic of U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, he remembered the words of his predecessor Benedict XVI
who lamented a world that did not care for children, the poor, or the stranger
And further on in his speech, the 70-year-old took a swing at a twisted financial structure that he said was dehumanizing
While a distorted economy leads us to treat human beings as mere merchandise
God becomes like us, revealing the infinite dignity of every person. And earlier in the week, he called for a global truce around the world on Christmas Day
expressing great sadness that negotiations for peace in Ukraine have stalled once again