Addressing those crowded at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, Pope Francis urged the world to unite.
“My wish for a happy Christmas is a wish for fraternity,” Francis, 82, said during his “Urbi et Orbi,” translated as “To the City and to the World,” benediction.
He said: “Fraternity among individuals of every nation and culture. Fraternity among people with different ideas, yet capable of respecting and listening to one another. Fraternity among persons of different religions.”
Without fraternity, Pope Francis said, “even our best plans and projects risk being soulless and empty.” He added that “our differences, then, are not a detriment or a danger; they are a source of richness.”
The Pope specifically appealed for peace in Yemen and Syria, two countries that have been ravaged by civil war for years. “My thoughts turn to Yemen, in the hope that the truce brokered by the international community may finally bring relief to all those children and people exhausted by war and famine,” he said.
The poor Arab country has been devastated by civil war since the Arab Spring in 2011.
The United Nations has said more than 6,800 civilians have been killed and at least 10,700 injured in the fighting since March 2015, with well over half of the casualties caused by coalition air strikes led by Saudi Arabia.
The U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project estimates that more than 60,000 civilians and militants have been killed since 2016.
Pope Francis said he hoped the international community would “work decisively for a political solution” in Syria. The country has been plagued by civil war for eight years, plunging its people into a humanitarian crisis.
“So that the Syrian people, especially all those who were forced to leave their own lands and seek refuge elsewhere, can return to live in peace in their own country,” he added.
The Syrian civil war also began in 2011, fought between President Bashar Assad, with Russia’s help, and anti-government groups. The Islamic State has also had a strong presence in the country.
This year, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights aggregated a figure of 511,000 killed in Syria, 85 percent of whom were civilians killed by the Syrian pro-government forces.
Pope Francis also cited the conflicts between the Israelis and the Palestinians and North and South Korea.
He also appealed for “social harmony” in Venezuela, reconciliation in Nicaragua, and an end to conflict in Africa “where millions of people are refugees, or displaced or in need of humanitarian assistance and food security.”
“An insatiable greed marks all human history, even today, when, paradoxically, a few dine luxuriantly while all too many go without the daily bread needed to survive,” the pope concluded.
