Pope Francis celebrated his first Christmas Eve Mass since becoming pontiff with a gesture of humility and call for universal brotherhood.
Francis walked briskly up the main aisle of a packed St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican and placed a statue of the baby Jesus into a manger scene. Instead of relying on an aide, he carried the statue himself, reinforcing the theme of unassuming simplicity he has made a hallmark of his papacy.
In his homily, the pope reflected on the reason for the season.
“If we love God and our brothers and sisters, we walk in the light,” he said. “But if our heart is closed, if we are dominated by pride, deceit, self-seeking, then darkness falls within us and around us.”
Pilgrims and tourists also witnessed the unveiling Tuesday of a Nativity scene named in the pope’s honor on St Peter’s Square. The scene is titled “Francis 1223 – Francis 2013” — a reference to St. Francis of Assisi, after whom the 77-year-old Argentine priest Jorge Mario Bergoglio took his papal name.
Francis delivered his first Christmas message from the basilica’s central balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
Francis, named Time’s Person of the Year earlier this month, is enjoying enormous popularity in his first holiday season as pope, according to a new CNN/ORC poll — which found that 88 percent of US Catholics and three-quarters of all Americans approve of the way he is leading the church.
That’s even better than Pope John Paul II, who hit a peak of 84 percent among US Catholics in 1999, then fell to 64 percent in 2003 during the church’s sexual-abuse crisis.
More than six in 10 US Catholics agree with Francis’ comments on the role of women in the church, and more than six in 10 say he is doing a good job handling fallout from the abuse scandal, the poll found.
In contrast, only 36 percent approved of the way his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, handled the scandal in a 2010 poll.
Meanwhile, the largest turnout of Christian pilgrims in years packed Bethlehem, the town of Jesus’ birth. At least 10,000 visitors had entered the West Bank town by early Tuesday evening, with the number expected to hit 25,000, officials said.
A giant Santa was set up in Manger Square, outside the church where a candlelit grotto marks the spot where Christians believe the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus.
Among those in the crowd headed to Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity were New Yorkers Will and Debbie Green and their 2-year-old daughter, Daphne.
Green said that being in Bethlehem for Christmas was a dream come true. “All the stories that we grew up with. It’s here. It’s part of our life,” he said.
With Post Wire Services