Shafaqna English- On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis calls for courage to transform the world. Pope celebrating the 12th Christmas of his pontificate, presided at a solemn Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and opened the 2025 Catholic Holy Year.
In a sermon focused on the virtue of hope, which is also the theme of the Holy Year, the pontiff said hope “is a summons not to tarry, to be kept back by our old habits, or to wallow in mediocrity or laziness”.
“Hope calls us … to be upset with things that are wrong and to find the courage to change them,” he said.
At the papal Mass, which was attended by thousands in St. Peter’s Basilica and thousands more watching on screens in the square outside, the pope also repeated an earlier call for developed nations to use the Catholic Holy Year, also known as a Jubilee, to reduce the debt burden faced by low-income countries.
“The Jubilee calls us to spiritual renewal and commits us to the transformation of our world,” said the pontiff. “A time of jubilee for the poorer countries burdened beneath unfair debts; a time of jubilee for all those who are in bondage to forms of slavery old and new.”
Source: Reuters