On Christmas Day, Pope Francis Prays for Peace in an Uneasy World

ROME — Pope Francis used his annual Christmas Day address on Monday to make clear his concern that serenity is sorely lacking at a time when the “winds of war” and an “outdated model of development” are taking a toll on humanity, society and the environment.

Addressing a crowd from a balcony at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, the pope delivered his Urbi et Orbi — Latin for “to the city and the world” — benediction, which read like a litany of global conflicts and problems.

But it was also an opportunity to pray for a positive turn of events, for a resuscitation of a two-state solution in the Middle East to the healing of war-torn Syria and Ukraine, for the easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula to a return to dialogue in Venezuela.

In recent days, the pope said on Twitter that a true celebration of Christmas would free the holiday from consumerism and the “worldliness that has taken it hostage!”

He has urged the faithful to instead focus on the “fragile simplicity of a new-born baby. That’s where God is.”

It was that image that he returned to in his Christmas remarks, urging Rome and the world to see the baby Jesus “in the children of the Middle East who continue to suffer because of growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.”

He said he hoped that international players of “good will” would help resume a dialogue so that “a negotiated solution can finally be reached, one that would allow the peaceful coexistence of two states within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders.”

The Holy See has expressed criticism of the Trump administration’s decision to recognize the contested holy city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and has urged caution about inflaming religious tensions there.

He noted on Monday the enduring clashes in Iraq and Yemen, where, he said “there is an ongoing conflict that has been largely forgotten.”

Francis, who has spoken with great concern about the sharpening language between President Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, prayed “that confrontation may be overcome on the Korean Peninsula, and that mutual trust may increase in the interest of the world as a whole.”

He urged the world to contemplate the children of African nations including South Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, and he recalled the children he met in his recent visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh.

That trip was overshadowed in large part by the question of whether he would address the persecution of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority. (He ultimately did, but only after leaving Myanmar.) Speaking on Christmas Day, he said he hoped the international community would “not cease to work to ensure that the dignity of the minority groups present in the region is adequately protected.”

Picking up on remarks he made at Christmas Eve Mass that served as a papal mission statement, Francis again spoke out for migrants and the “many children forced to leave their countries to travel alone in inhuman conditions, and who become an easy target for human traffickers.”

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