ROME – Pope Francis on Friday asked world leaders, companies and international organizations to help ensure that the most vulnerable and needy have access to newly developed coronavirus vaccines.
Instead of speaking to the tens of thousands usually gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Francis gave his annual Christmas address in a grand hall inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.
In a year in which the pandemic plunged the world into economic and social uncertainty, the pope was just one of many Christian leaders and pastors around the world who delivered large, heavy messages to small personal audiences.
Francis used his traditional Christmas speech to argue that widespread suffering should compel people to reflect on their common humanity and apply these principles to the way vaccines are administered.
“We cannot allow the various forms of nationalism closed in on themselves to prevent us from living as the truly human family that we are,” said the pope.
“Nor can we allow the virus of radical individualism to dominate us and make us indifferent to the suffering of other brothers and sisters,” he said. “I cannot put myself in front of others, letting the law of the market and patents take precedence over the law of love and health of humanity.”
Almost a quarter of the world’s population may not have access to a coronavirus vaccine until at least 2022, according to a recent study published in the British Medical Journal. The leaders of many poorer countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America said they were concerned about the impossibility of providing the vaccine to a large part of their populations.
Around the world this year, Christians have reduced or reinvented Christmas traditions.
A choral concert was held at Notre-Dame in Paris, where a fire nearly destroyed the cathedral in 2019, but this season the annual French tradition took place without the usual audience.
Midnight mass at Westminster Cathedral in London is usually a festive event with pomp and pomp, but this year’s one has been reduced, with the service broadcast online rather than in person.
“In the darkness of this pandemic, many of our comfortable assumptions are being shaken,” said Cardinal Nichols, archbishop of Westminster. “Here we are, celebrating Christmas, but deprived of the greetings, hugs, kisses and handshakes that normally fill this day.”
He said the pandemic tested family ties and lamented that some people in nursing homes and hospitals who wanted to see their loved ones “would disappear from pure loneliness”.
In the Holy Land, the thousands of pilgrims who usually flock to Bethlehem to celebrate were absent. The suspension of international flights and other restrictions meant that few could reach the Church of the Nativity, built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.
Christmas Eve Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York was moderate, with attendance limited to 25 percent capacity, or 500 people.
In the Vatican, Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica was postponed by two hours to meet the Italian government’s 10 pm curfew.
The pope traditionally uses his Christmas address to draw attention to the conflicts or natural disasters that plagued the planet last year.
And he did it again on Friday, asking the world to remember the plight of so many in 2020 – from the Yazidis in Iraq to the Rohingya in Myanmar. He said it is the duty of every citizen in the world to help end violence and alleviate suffering.
Francis said that the world faced “a historic moment, marked by the ecological crisis and serious economic and social imbalances aggravated only by the pandemic of the coronavirus”.
But it was the pandemic that largely shaped the world this year and the pandemic, he said, that would allow humanity to really consider what global cooperation can achieve.
At the end of his speech, bells rang and echoed in an empty St. Peter’s Square.
Elisabetta Povoledo reported from Rome, and Marc Santora from London.