Category: 2023 News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Celebrating the birth of Jesus, the prince of peace, should mean making a commitment to opposing all war, to cherishing human life, feeding the hungry and speaking up for those who have no voice, Pope Francis said.

“To say ‘yes’ to the Prince of Peace, then, means saying ‘no’ to war — and doing so with courage — saying no to every war, to the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly,” the pope said Dec. 25 as he read his Christmas message and offered his blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world).

As he stood on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica with an estimated 70,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square, the pope began his message speaking of Bethlehem where celebrations of Jesus’ birth are muted this year because of the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

But he also used his message to preach the hope of Christmas, which he said was found in God, who loved humanity so much that he sent his son to be born in a manger.

In the midst of darkness for whole nations or for individuals, he said, God sends his light.

“Let us exult in this gift of grace,” Pope Francis said. “Rejoice, you who have abandoned all hope, for God offers you his outstretched hand; he does not point a finger at you, but offers you his little baby hand, in order to set you free from your fears, to relieve you of your burdens and to show you that, in his eyes, you are more valuable than anything else.”

U.S. Cardinal James M. Harvey, archpriest of Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, stood alongside Pope Francis on the balcony, announcing a plenary indulgence available for everyone present, listening by radio, watching on television or following with “other means of communication.”

In his message, Pope Francis said Christmas is a call to push for peace and to educate oneself about the arms industry, which foments killing.

“People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms,” he said. “Yet that is something they ought to know! It should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war.”

War “is devasting the lives” of Israelis and Palestinians, he said.

“I embrace them all, particularly the Christian communities of Gaza and the entire Holy Land,” the pope said. He again condemned the “abominable attack” Hamas militants carried out in Israel Oct. 7 and repeated his “urgent appeal for the liberation of those still being held hostage.”

But Pope Francis also called on Israel to halt “the military operations with their appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims” and open corridors for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The enemy of the prince of peace, according to the Bible, is “the ‘prince of this world,’ who, by sowing the seeds of death, plots against the Lord, ‘the lover of life,'” the pope told the crowd.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, he noted, soon after Jesus’ birth, Herod ordered the execution of all male children under the age of 2 in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

“How many innocents are being slaughtered in our world — in their mothers’ wombs, in odysseys undertaken in desperation and in search of hope, in the lives of all those little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war,” he said. “They are the little Jesuses of today.”

“From the manger, the child Jesus asks us to be the voice of those who have no voice,” the pope said. “The voice of the innocent children who have died for lack of bread and water; the voice of those who cannot find work or who have lost their jobs; the voice of those forced to flee their lands in search of a better future, risking their lives in grueling journeys and prey to unscrupulous traffickers.”

Pope Francis also prayed for peace and stability in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Sudan, South Sudan, Cameroon and Congo.

Looking to the Americas, where a second Nicaraguan bishop was arrested Dec. 20 and where several nations are experiencing social and political strife, Pope Francis prayed that the newborn Lord would inspire political authorities and all people of good will “to resolve social and political conflicts, to combat forms of poverty that offend the dignity of persons, to reduce inequality and to address the troubling phenomenon of migration movements.”

With the opening of the Holy Door and the inauguration of the Holy Year 2025 only a year away, Pope Francis prayed that people would use the next 12 months as “an opportunity for the conversion of hearts, for the rejection of war and the embrace of peace and for joyfully responding to the Lord’s call, in the words of Isaiah’s prophecy, ‘to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.'”

(OSV News) – Christmas in Bethlehem was celebratory but not as festive as usual this year, given the outbreak of war in the Holy Land two-and-a-half months ago.

Visiting for Christmas, the papal envoy, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of Vatican Dicastery for the Service of Charity, assisted the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem in the wartime celebration amid the “helplessness” of not being able to ease suffering Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Cardinal Krajewski is in the Holy Land as part of a “journey of closeness” with Christians in the region.

On Dec. 24, Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa arrived in Bethlehem on the West Bank with Cardinal Krajewski, where they were escorted by Israeli police to the border of the West Bank, and then by Palestinian police.

“We got out of the cars very quickly and went on foot to the Church of the Nativity. There were thousands of people there. On the way to the church everyone wanted to touch, kiss the hands of the patriarch,” Cardinal Krajewski told OSV News in a recorded voice message.

At 4 p.m. on Dec. 24, both cardinals joined the solemn procession of the Franciscans to the Grotto of the Nativity, where hymns and Christmas songs were sung, followed by a festive dinner with authorities of Bethlehem.

“This year, the mayors of Assisi and Greccio, where St. Francis built his first Nativity scene, joined Bethlehem in a touching sign of solidarity,” Cardinal Krajewski said.

At the solemn celebration of early Christmas Mass on Dec. 24, Cardinal Krajewski said that 2,000 people filled the Church of the Nativity. Despite hard times for the Holy Land, “people were all beautifully, festively dressed,” he said.

“For too many days, we have all been caught up in the sad and painful feeling that there is no room this year for the joy and peace that the angels announced to the shepherds of Bethlehem in this Holy Night, not far from here,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said during the homily.

“At this moment, our thoughts cannot be far from those who have lost everything in this war, including their closest loved ones, and who are now displaced, alone and paralyzed by their grief,” he said.

“My thoughts go, without distinction, to all who are affected by this war, in Palestine and Israel and the whole region. I am especially close to those who are in mourning and weeping and waiting for a concrete gesture of closeness and care. Tonight, I remember the hostages kidnapped from their families, as I remember the people who languish in prisons without having had the right to a trial,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said.

Instead of festive celebrations, Palestinian children in the streets of Bethlehem carried signs showing solidarity with suffering Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. White signs with black inscriptions read “Gaza in the heart” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

After the solemn Mass, the patriarch, accompanied by Cardinal Krajewski, went to the Grotto of the Nativity, “where we spent 30 minutes praying, singing, visiting the place and leaving the statue of baby Jesus there,” Cardinal Krajewski said.

Pope Francis said in his Christmas message Dec. 25 that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the “little Jesuses of today.” He said that Israeli strikes there were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians.

In the Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and world) address, the pontiff also called the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants “abominable” and appealed for the release of around 100 hostages still being held in Gaza.

Cardinal Krajewski said he was unable to reach Holy Family Parish in Gaza City by phone on Christmas Eve, but, along with the patriarch, he met 20 people who have loved ones trapped in the Gaza Strip. He assured Christians in Bethlehem that “the Holy Father is with them,” in their suffering, and “expressed his closeness.”

Cardinal Krajewski said the church feels “helpless” watching the situation in the Gaza Strip.

“We are able to organize a huge amount of aid in a few minutes and send everything to this place of great tragedy. But it is humanly impossible at the moment,” he told OSV News. “That’s why prayer is so necessary today. Jesus, you take over! We do not have such opportunities, we do not have access to Gaza. We are simply helpless.”

Still, the cardinal added, “there is hope, and we do not lose hope.”

On Dec. 23, Cardinal Krajewski visited poor Christian families. “I went with ‘koleda,'” he said, referring to a traditional Christmas visit of priests in the homes of their parishioners in his native Poland.

“They live very modestly. So I was with them and passed greetings from Pope Francis. I also left very concrete help — I thought they could pay a few months’ rent for the sum,” he said.

“But I learned then that the Latin Patriarchate rents apartments owned by the church for free to the poor Christians,” he said. “The church has a great deal of wealth, and all over the world you can help the poor in a very concrete way, the way they do in the Holy Land. we can learn from them.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – More than two millennia after the Holy Family was denied a room at the inn and Jesus was born in a manger, war once again renders his birthplace in the Holy Land inhospitable, Pope Francis said.

“Tonight, 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,” the pope said Dec. 24 during his homily for Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The nighttime liturgy began with preparatory prayers that included Old Testament readings telling of the Messiah’s coming, invocations of the Savior and the proclamation of his birth. Children, who entered the basilica as part of the procession dressed in traditional garments from different continents, placed flowers around a figurine of Jesus that rested in front of the basilica’s main altar.

In his lengthy homily, the pope reflected on Jesus’ birth occurring after Caesar decreed a census in which “the whole world should be enrolled,” as recounted in St. Luke’s Gospel.

The census, he said, “manifests the all-too-human thread that runs through history: the quest for worldly power and might, fame and glory, which measures everything in terms of success, results, numbers and figures, a world obsessed with achievement.”

By becoming human, however, Jesus chooses the way of “littleness.”

“He does not eliminate injustice from above by a show of power, but from below, by a show of love,” the pope said. “He does not burst on the scene with limitless power but descends to the narrow confines of our lives. He does not shun our frailties but makes them his own.”

At Christmas, Pope Francis encouraged Christians to shun the image of a mighty and lofty God, “because there is always a risk that we can celebrate Christmas while thinking of God in pagan terms, as a powerful potentate in the sky; a god linked to power, worldly success and the idolatry of consumerism.”

The pope, using a wheelchair, greeted representatives of other Christian denominations as he entered the basilica. Although the 87-year-old pope delivered his homily while seated, he showed no signs of difficulty while reading the long text and only stopped occasionally to clear his throat.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, was the main celebrant at the altar.

To God, “who changed history in the course of a census, you are not a number, but a face,” Pope Francis told the 6,500 people gathered inside the basilica, as well as those following the Mass on screens in St. Peter’s Square outside.

“If you look to your own heart and think of your own inadequacies and this world that is so judgmental and unforgiving, you may feel it difficult to celebrate this Christmas,” he said. “You may think things are going badly or feel dissatisfied with your limitations, failings and problems, for your sins.”

On Christmas, however, the pope encouraged Christians to “let Jesus take the initiative.”

“He became flesh; he is looking not for your achievements but for your open and trusting heart,” he said. “In him, you will rediscover who you truly are: a beloved son or daughter of God.

After the Mass, Pope Francis carried the figurine of the baby Jesus in his lap while an aide pushed him in his wheelchair toward the Nativity scene at the back of the basilica. Flanked by children on either side, the pope went to the crèche, and the Jesus figurine was placed in the manger. The pope stopped to greet the crowd as he left the basilica, led by the children who were jumping and clapping along the way.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Vatican publishing house announced it will release a book of some 130 homilies given by the late Pope Benedict XVI at private Sunday Masses – 30 given while he was pope and more than 100 given to members of his household once he retired.

The homilies were recorded and transcribed by the consecrated women, members of Memores Domini, who lived with him and ran his household, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, president of the board of directors of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation.

Announcing the publication Dec. 23, the foundation and the Vatican publishing house did not give a date for its release, but they published a homily Pope Benedict XVI had given Dec. 22, 2013, the fourth Sunday of Advent of his first year of retirement.

The homily focused on St. Joseph and the biblical description of him as a “just man,” which, before the birth of Jesus, would have signified that he followed the Torah, the law given to the people of Israel.

“The danger is that if the word of God is essentially law, it can be regarded as a sum of prescriptions and prohibitions, a package of norms, and the attitude therefore would be to observe the norms and thus be correct,” Pope Benedict had said in the homily.

“But if religion is like that, if that is all it is, there is no personal relationship with God, and man remains within himself, seeks to perfect himself, to be perfect,” he had said, and it is difficult to love a God “who presents himself only with rules and sometimes even threats.”

But with the coming of Jesus, the late pope said, the law is not a set of regulations to be observed, but it is “an expression of God’s will,” and by trying to understand and follow God’s will, one enters into a relationship with him.

“A truly righteous person like St Joseph is like this: for him the law is not simply the observance of rules, but presents itself as a word of love, an invitation to dialogue,” the homily continues. The dialogue leads one to discover “that all these norms do not apply for their own sake, but are rules of love, they serve so that love grows in me.”

When one understands that “the whole law is only love of God and neighbor,” one begins to see the face of God and is led to Christ, he said.

Pope Benedict said Christians face “the same temptation, the same danger that existed in the Old Testament: even a Christian can arrive at an attitude in which the Christian religion is regarded as a package of rules, of prohibitions and positive norms,” and they can believe that if one tries hard enough, he or she can reach perfection.

The point of faith, though, he said, is to find Jesus, “the way of life and the joy of faith.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Eight hundred years ago as the Church celebrated the latter days of Advent and prepared to commemorate the birth of Jesus, a cherished tradition in our lives as Christians was born.

Traveling from Rome to Assisi after having just received approval from the Pope for his brotherhood, Saint Francis stopped along the way in the little Italian town of Greccio. Having visited the Holy Land, the caves in Greccio reminded Francis of the countryside of Bethlehem. So, he asked a local man named John to help him celebrate with the faithful of the town the holy night of Christmas by replicating the original scene in Bethlehem.

Saint Francis’ biographers described in detail what then took place in Greccio: “On December 25, friars came to Greccio from various parts, together with people from the farmsteads in the area, who brought flowers and torches to light up the holy night. When Francis arrived, he found a manger full of hay, an ox, and a donkey. All those present experienced a new and indescribable joy in the presence of the Christmas scene. The priest then solemnly celebrated the Eucharist over the manger, showing the bond between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist. At Greccio, there were no statues – just a manger, an ox, and a donkey; the nativity scene was enacted and experienced by all who were present.”

That Christmas night, eight centuries ago, began the tradition of the Nativity scene that we maintain in our churches and in our homes. For all its familiarity and the tendency that we may have to diminish its significance in the face of so many other competing symbols and traditions associated with Christmas, we would do well to pause at some point in this sacred season to reflect upon the message that lies at the heart of this treasured scene.

Like the faithful people of Greccio, Italy, look beyond the statues or figurines and imagine yourself in Bethlehem in a cave, with animals, straw, dirt, and a promise provided by a newborn baby boy.

In God’s plan to save His people, Jesus didn’t set Himself apart from the ordinariness of human life.

No, Jesus immersed Himself in the human condition of our world, for all its beauty and peace, its brokenness and pain, its sin and suffering. And He did so for a reason: In coming into our lives as a baby born in a manger – hardly a sign of power, self-sufficiency or pride – God lowered Himself so that we could walk with Him and He could stand beside us, not above or far from us, to lead us on the pathway to His promise of life and peace.

All too often, however, we are quick to leave the cave of Bethlehem and travel other pathways to achieve meaning and purpose in our lives. We set aside the message of salvation proclaimed throughout the ages by the life, love, mercy, and forgiveness of Jesus. We’re reluctant to heed his invitation to walk in his footsteps. Then we wonder why our lives are so unsettled and peace in our hearts, our homes and our world, appears to be so elusive. We wonder why God can’t provide us with a way out of suffering and pain in Israel, Ukraine, far too many places throughout our world, at our borders, in our neighborhoods, in our families and in our hearts.

Brothers and sisters, the good news and blessing of Christmas is that God has already provided us a way forward with hope if we are wise and humble enough to embrace the message of Bethlehem and the birth of his Son.

May we pray during these cherished days for peace in our troubled world, especially in the Holy Land where our Prince of Peace was born. May we open our hearts to the grace of God and the great mystery of salvation won for us through the simple story begun in a cave in Bethlehem that continues to be the world’s true and lasting reason for hope!

With gratitude for the privilege of serving as your Bishop and with prayers for a holy and blessed Christmas for you, your family and all you hold dear, I am

Faithfully yours in Christ,

Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, D.D., J.C.L.
Bishop of Scranton

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s declaration on informally blessing same-sex couples or other non-married couples is a reminder that the Catholic Church and its pastors never close the door on people seeking God’s help, said a commentary published in Vatican media.

“The heart of a shepherd cannot remain indifferent to the people who approach him, humbly asking to be blessed, regardless of their condition, their history or the path of their life,” said the commentary by Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Dicastery for Communication.

“The shepherd’s heart does not extinguish the flickering light of one who senses their own incompleteness, knowing they need mercy and help from on High,” Tornielli wrote in a piece published Dec. 18 in multiple languages on the Vatican News website and in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.

The doctrinal dicastery’s document, “Fiducia Supplicans” (“Supplicating Trust”) was approved by Pope Francis during an audience with Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, dicastery prefect, Dec. 18 and published the same day.

Tornielli explained that it “opens the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations, including same-sex couples. It clarifies that blessing in this case does not mean approving their life choices and emphasizes the need to avoid any ritualization or other elements that may remotely imitate marriage.”

“The origin of the declaration is evangelical,” Tornielli said, because it draws from the myriad examples in the Gospels of Jesus breaking “traditions and religious prescriptions, respectability, and social conventions. He performs actions that scandalize the self-righteous, the so-called ‘pure,’ those who shield themselves with norms and rules to distance, reject and close doors.”

Everyone who approached Jesus “encountered His gaze and felt loved, recipients of an embrace of mercy given to them without any precondition,” Tornielli wrote. And “discovering themselves loved and forgiven, they realized what they were: poor sinners like everyone else, in need of conversion, beggars for everything.”

In his introduction to the declaration, Cardinal Fernández wrote that it “remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion,” but it also explores the “pastoral meaning of blessings” in a way that opens “the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”

The church “remains firm” in teaching that marriage can be contracted only between one woman and one man, he said, and continues to insist that “rites and prayers that could create confusion” about a marriage and another form of relationship “are inadmissible.”

But, Tornielli wrote, the declaration also insists that a priest or deacon with a “shepherd’s heart” would see in a couple’s request for a blessing “a crack in the wall, a tiny opening through which grace might already be at work. Therefore, their first concern is not to close the small crack, but to welcome and implore blessing and mercy so that the people before them can begin to understand God’s plan for their lives.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A Catholic priest can bless a gay or other unmarried couple as long as it is not a formal liturgical blessing and does not give the impression that the Catholic Church is blessing the union as if it were a marriage, the Vatican doctrinal office said.

The request for a blessing can express and nurture “openness to the transcendence, mercy and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live. It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered,” the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said in a formal declaration published Dec. 18.

The document, “Fiducia Supplicans” (“Supplicating Trust”) was subtitled, “On the pastoral meaning of blessings,” and was approved by Pope Francis during an audience with Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, dicastery prefect, Dec. 18.

In his introductory note, Cardinal Fernández said questions about a priest blessing a LGBTQ+ or other unmarried couple had been sent to the doctrinal office repeatedly over the past few years.

The need for a fuller explanation of blessings became clear, he wrote, after Pope Francis responded to the “dubia” or questions of several cardinals in a letter released in early October.

In his letter, the pope insisted marriage is an “exclusive, stable and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to conceiving children,” which is why the church “avoids all kinds of rites or sacramentals that could contradict this conviction and imply that it is recognizing as a marriage something that is not.”

At the same time, the pope said, “pastoral prudence must adequately discern if there are forms of blessing, solicited by one or various persons, that don’t transmit a mistaken concept of marriage.”

Cardinal Fernández said the declaration “remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion,” but it also explores the “pastoral meaning of blessings” in a way that opens “the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”

The church “remains firm” in teaching that marriage can be contracted only between one woman and one man, he said, and continues to insist that “rites and prayers that could create confusion” about a marriage and another form of relationship “are inadmissible.”

But in Catholic tradition blessings go well beyond the formal ritual used in marriage and other sacraments.

“Blessings are among the most widespread and evolving sacramentals. Indeed, they lead us to grasp God’s presence in all the events of life and remind us that, even in the use of created things, human beings are invited to seek God, to love him, and to serve him faithfully,” the declaration said. That is why people, meals, rosaries, homes, pets and myriad other things can be and are blessed on various occasions.

“From a strictly liturgical point of view,” the declaration said, “a blessing requires that what is blessed be conformed to God’s will, as expressed in the teachings of the Church,” which is why the then-doctrinal congregation in 2021 excluded the possibility of blessing gay couples.

But, the new document said, Catholics should “avoid the risk of reducing the meaning of blessings” to their formal, liturgical use because that “would lead us to expect the same moral conditions for a simple blessing that are called for in the reception of the sacraments.”

“Indeed, there is the danger that a pastoral gesture that is so beloved and widespread will be subjected to too many moral prerequisites, which, under the claim of control, could overshadow the unconditional power of God’s love that forms the basis for the gesture of blessing,” it said.

A person who asks for God’s blessing, the declaration said, “shows himself to be in need of God’s saving presence in his life and one who asks for a blessing from the Church recognizes the latter as a sacrament of the salvation that God offers.”

The church, it said, should be grateful when people ask for a blessing and should see it as a sign that they know they need God’s help.

“When people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. For, those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection,” it said.

At the same time, the declaration insisted that the Mass is not the proper setting for the less formal forms of blessing that could include the blessing of a gay couple, and it repeated that “it is not appropriate for a diocese, a bishops’ conference” or other church structure to issue a formal blessing prayer or ritual for unwed couples. The blessing also should not be given “in concurrence” with a civil marriage ceremony to avoid appearing as a sort of church blessing of the civil union.

However, it said, a priest or deacon could “join in the prayer of those persons who, although in a union that cannot be compared in any way to a marriage, desire to entrust themselves to the Lord and his mercy, to invoke his help and to be guided to a greater understanding of his plan of love and of truth.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Exchanging Christmas gifts and organizing holiday parties are all well and good, but Christians should contemplate the scene of Jesus’ birth to recover what is truly important during the Christmas season, Pope Francis said.

At his weekly general audience Dec. 20, just five days before Christmas, the pope told people that “the risk of losing what matters in life is great, and paradoxically increases at Christmas.”

“The atmosphere of Christmas is changing,” he said. “It’s true, if people want to give presents, that’s good, but with the frenzy of shopping, ‘go, go, go,’ this pulls one’s attention somewhere else, and there is not that simplicity of Christmas.”

For people caught up in the holiday rush, “there is no interior space for wonder” before the mystery of Jesus’ birth, but “only to organize parties,” he said.

Organizing parties is fine, “but with what spirit do I do that?” he encouraged people to ask.

After a band performed Christmas songs using traditional wooden instruments, Pope Francis entered the Paul VI Audience Hall using a cane. He read most of his lengthy catechesis, often departing from his prepared text to speak off-the-cuff and only occasionally pausing to catch his breath.

Recalling the first Nativity scene — a live one — staged by St. Francis of Assisi 800 years ago in Greccio, Italy, the pope said that the Nativity scenes being prepared by Christians around the world should provoke a sense of amazement in the humility of a God who became human.

“If we Christians look at the Nativity as something nice, something historic, even religious, and pray, that is not enough,” he said. “Before the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, before the birth of Jesus, one needs a religious attitude of wonder. If I, before the mysteries, don’t arrive at this wonder, my faith is simply superficial.”

The Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican this year is a recreation of St. Francis’ original Nativity scene and includes a figure of the saint and three other Franciscan friars, including a Franciscan priest celebrating Mass, just as one of St. Francis’ confreres did in the cave near Greccio on Christmas Eve in 1223.

St. Francis created the first Nativity scene “to bring us back to what matters: to God coming to live among us. That’s why it is important to look at the Nativity scene,” the pope said. He also highlighted how the many figures often included in Nativity scenes — Mary, St. Joseph, local herders and other figures close to Jesus — convey how God puts “people before things.”

“So often we put things before people; this doesn’t work,” the pope said.

Nativity scenes also depict great joy, he said, but that “is different than having fun.”

“Having fun is not a bad thing if it is done in the right way, it’s something human,” he said, “but joy is even more profound, more human, and sometimes there is the temptation to have fun without joy.”

The pope read an account of those who attended the first Nativity scene in Greccio and “returned home with an ineffable joy.” Such joy, he said, did not come from bringing home gifts or attending lavish parties, “no, it was the joy that overflows from the heart when one touches the closeness of Jesus, the tenderness of God who does not leave one alone but consoles them.”

“If before the Nativity scene we entrust to Jesus all that we have in our hearts, we too will feel a great joy,” he said, encouraging people to go to a Nativity scene, “look, and let yourself feel something in your heart.”

Pope Francis ended his audience by asking people not to forget those who suffer because of war, particularly those in Palestine, Israel and Ukraine.

“Let us think of the children in war, the things they see; let us go to the Nativity scene and ask Jesus for peace,” the pope said. “He is the prince of peace.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Vatican City State criminal court sentenced Cardinal Angelo Becciu to five years and six months in prison on two counts of embezzlement and one of aggravated fraud but found him not guilty of abuse of office or witness tampering.

The 75-year-old cardinal’s attorney, Fabio Veglione, told reporters his client would appeal.

The three-judge panel of the Vatican court handed down the verdicts late Dec. 16. In addition to Cardinal Becciu, five other people were sentenced to jail time ranging from three years to seven years and were ordered to pay the Vatican millions of dollars in damages.

Pending appeal, none of the six people given jail terms were taken into custody.

Only one of the 10 defendants, Msgr. Mauro Carlino, the former secretary of then-Archbishop Becciu when he served as “sostituto,” the No. 3 position in the Vatican Secretariat of State, was found not guilty of all charges.

Enrico Crasso, a long-time investment manager who often worked with the Vatican, received the stiffest sentence: seven years in jail.

René Brülhart and Tommaso di Ruzza, respectively former president and former director of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency, now known as the Supervisory and Financial Information Authority, were “absolved” of the charge of abuse of office but were found guilty of negligence for not reporting a suspect financial operation. They each were fined 1,750 euros ($1,900).

The trial revolved around the Vatican’s investment in a property in London’s chic Chelsea district. But the way the deal was structured and restructured ended up costing the Vatican as much as $200 million. Cardinal Becciu was the No. 3 official at the Vatican Secretariat of State when the property deal, using money invested by the secretariat, was first made in 2014.

The cardinal and three others — Raffaele Mincione, Fabrizio Tirabassi and Enrico Crasso — were found guilty of embezzlement for taking $200.5 million from the Secretariat of State’s investment fund — a third of the entire fund — and investing it with Athena Capital Commodities.

The court described the fund as being “highly speculative” and risky, which violated Vatican guidelines and canon law on the use of church funds.

Mincione, who ran Athena Capital, was found guilty of money laundering for using the Vatican funds to buy the London property, but the court said Cardinal Becciu, Tirabassi and Crasso were not responsible for the London property disaster because they had no control over the money once it was invested with Athena.

The cardinal also was accused of embezzling money that he gave to a Caritas project run by his brother in Sardinia and for aggravated fraud for giving more than 570,000 euros of Vatican money to a woman named Cecilia Marogna, who claimed she could help win the release of a nun kidnapped in Mali.

Marogna was found guilty of being complicit in the aggravated fraud and was sentenced to three years and nine months in jail.

Nicola Squillace, a Milan-based lawyer who helped broker the London property deal, was given a 22-month suspended sentence.

The Vatican tribunal said it would confiscate the equivalent of about $181 million from those found guilty and ordered them to pay another $218 million in damages to the Secretariat of State, the Vatican bank, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, and Supervisory and Financial Information Authority.

The verdicts were announced two and a half years after the trial began; 86 courts sessions were held with more than 600 hours of testimony by some 69 witnesses. Hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, emails, text messages and transcripts of phone conversations were entered into evidence.

All together, 10 people and four companies had been charged with 49 crimes including bribery, embezzlement, abuse of office, money laundering, fraud and, in Cardinal Becciu’s case, witness tampering, a charge for which the court said it found no evidence.

In April 2021, the pope updated the laws governing the Vatican’s civil judicial system, stating that cardinals and bishops accused of a crime could be tried in a Vatican court, which, as it turned out, paved the way for the indictment three months later against Cardinal Becciu.