Pope Leo Highlights Gaza's Suffering In First Christmas Mass

Vatican City- Pope Leo XIV during his first Christmas Day homily on Thursday remembered the people of Gaza“exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold” and said the world's many conflicts can only be silenced through dialogue.

Leo led the Christmas Day Mass from the central altar beneath the balustrade of St Peter's Basilica, adorned with floral garlands and clusters of red poinsettias. White flowers were set at the feet of a statue of Mary, mother of Jesus, whose birth is celebrated on Christmas Day.

Recalling that God was made flesh through Jesus's birth in a manger in Bethlehem, Leo likened God's word to“a fragile tent among us.”

“How then can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold; and of those so many other refugees and displaced persons on every continent, or of the makeshift shelters of thousands of homeless people in our own cities,” Leo said.

The pontiff also recalled the fragility of“defenceless populations, tried by so many wars,” and of“young people forced to take up arms, who on the front lines feel the senselessness of what is asked of them, and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths.”

Leo underlined that peace can emerge only through dialogue.

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