VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday offered a Christmas hope for peace in a world lacerated by war and terrorism, urging people to remember migrants, refugees and those hit by economic instability caused by “idolatry of money.”

Francis, marking the fourth Christmas season since his election in 2013, also urged Palestinians and Israelis, facing renewed tension after a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements on occupied land, to have the courage to put aside hate and revenge and “write a new page of history.”

His traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message was linked by a common thread of war, violence and suffering at a time that should be defined by harmony and peace symbolized by the infant Jesus. He also lamented that in Nigeria “fundamentalist terrorism exploits even children,” a reference to child suicide bombers, and he decried conflicts and tensions in Africa, eastern Ukraine, Myanmar, the Korean peninsula, Colombia and Venezuela. The Guardian newspaper quoted the pontiff as saying he wants his words regarding the end of violence to be carried “to the ends of the Earth to reach all peoples, especially those scarred by war and harsh conflicts that seem stronger than the yearning for peace.”

“Far too much blood has been spilled,” he went on.
Pope Francis pleads for peace in a Christmas Mass in the Vatican.