‘Our hearts are in Bethlehem’: Pope Francis prays for peace

Religious leaders in Australia have used Christmas sermons to call for peace as the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war continues to rise.

Pope Francis presides at the Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. Picture: AFP

Religious leaders in Australia have used Christmas sermons to call for peace as the death toll from the ­Israel-Hamas war continues to rise.

At the end of a year marked by natural disasters, mounting economic uncertainty and war overseas, Sydney Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher said it can “seem hollow to keep carolling about peace”.

“Instead of goodwill we witness man’s inhumanity to man; instead of hope, despair, as people worry about war, climate, family tensions, health and making ends meet,” he told worshippers packed into St Mary’s Cathedral on Christmas morning.

“Christmas can seem like a fairytale, a nice story we tell our children and ourselves, but not one reflecting our realities.

“Christmas does not erase the realities of conflict in our world, our communities, our families, our hearts … yet something different is possible … a love to conquer the hate.”

At a service at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, Catholic Archbishop Peter Comensoli urged people celebrating Christmas to be attentive to the “broken people across the world who are held captive by the tragedy of war and old hatreds”.

“Our world and its people seem to be both groaning for and railing against pathways to a peace that is just and right,” he told worshippers. “Into the midst of this we experience the hope of God through simple words of joy, mercy and peace.”

In the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, the biblical birthplace of Jesus, public Christmas celebrations were cancelled because of the war in Gaza.

The city, usually overflowing with tourists in December, was near deserted with no Christmas tree or lights erected.

The new Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Jeremy Greaves, said he was struck by photographs of the nativity scene at Bethlehem’s Lutheran Evangelical church.

“Using broken cement and paving stones, they placed the baby Jesus in the centre of a pile of debris from a collapsed home,” he said at midnight mass at St John’s Cathedral.

A nativity scene in Bethlehem in the West Banck. Picture: Getty Images

“Jesus would have grown up hearing the stories of the devastation wrought by the occupying armies of Rome – the Christ who is born again and again into even the most troubled places in our lives and our world.”

In her Christmas message, Uniting Church in Australia president Reverend Sharon Hollis said the mood seemed far from celebratory in many places this year. “In Australia, many people are struggling to afford food and shelter, others have watched their homes and livelihoods burned in fires or destroyed by droughts.

“This Christmas we will sing carols that speak of stillness and silence on the night of Jesus’ birth at the same time we watch and read about the violence taking place in these same lands.

“Our hearts cry out as we see hospitals bombed, hostages held, babies die for lack of basic care, and homes crumbling.”

At the Vatican’s traditional Christmas Eve mass, Pope Francis, spiritual leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, said “our hearts are in Bethlehem where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war … by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world”.

Earlier, at the traditional Angelus blessing, Francis said “we are close to our brothers and sisters who are suffering from war – we are thinking of Palestine, of Israel, of Ukraine”.

“May the God who took a human heart for himself infuse humanity into the hearts of men.”