VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis called on authorities on Christmas Day to make COVID-19 vaccines available to everyone, insisting that the first in line should be the most vulnerable and needy, regardless of who holds the patents vaccines.
“Vaccines for all, especially for the most vulnerable and needy”, who should be first in line, Francis said in improvised comments on his prepared text, calling the development of such vaccines a “light of hope” for the world.
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“We cannot allow closed nationalisms to prevent us from living as the true human family that we are,” said the pope.
Pope Francis arrives to deliver the Christmas Day blessing Urbi et Orbi (Latin for ‘for the city and for the world’) inside the blessing hall of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, Friday, December 25, 2020 (Vatican Media via AP)
He urged leaders of nations, companies and international organizations to “promote cooperation and not competition, and to seek a solution for all”.
In the midst of a wave of coronavirus infections this fall in Italy, Francis broke the tradition for Christmas. Instead of giving his speech “Urbi et Orbi” – in Latin “for the city and the world” – outside the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, he read it from inside a cavernous hall in the Apostolic Palace, flanked by two Christmas trees with flashing lights.
Typically, tens of thousands of people would have gathered in St. Peter’s Square to receive the Pope’s Christmas blessing and listen to his speech. But Italian measures to try to control infections on holiday allow people to leave their homes at Christmas only for urgent reasons, such as work, health, visits to loved ones nearby or physical exercise close to home.
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The repercussions of the pandemic on life dominated Francisco’s reflections last year.
“At this time in history, marked by the ecological crisis and serious economic and social imbalances only exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, it is much more important that we recognize ourselves as brothers and sisters,” said Francis.
Brotherhood and compassion apply to people “even if they don’t belong to my family, my ethnic group or my religion,” he said.
Francis prayed that the birth of Jesus would inspire people to be “generous, supportive and helpful” to those in need, including those struggling with “the economic effects of the pandemic and women who suffered domestic violence during these months of confinement”.
Noting that the “American continent” was particularly hard hit by COVID-19, he said the pandemic worsened the suffering, “often made worse by the consequences of corruption and drug trafficking”. In particular, he cited the suffering of the Venezuelan people.
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On a day when Christians remember Jesus as a baby, Francis drew attention to “many children around the world, especially in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, who still pay the high price of war”.
Among others, he said he desperately needed comfort at Christmas time for the Iraqi people, and “in particular the Yazidis, hard hit by the last years of the war”. And he said: “I cannot forget the Rohingya people”, adding that he hoped that Jesus, “born poor among the poor, will bring hope in their suffering”.
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