Pope Francis has strongly defended immigrants at his Christmas Eve Mass, comparing them to Mary and Joseph finding no place to stay in Bethlehem and saying faith demands that foreigners be welcomed.
Celebrating his fifth Christmas as leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Francis led a solemn Mass for about 10,000 people in St Peter's Basilica while many others followed the service from the square outside.
Security was stepped up, with participants checked as they approached St Peter's Square even before going through metal detectors to enter the basilica. The square had been cleared out hours earlier so security procedures could be put in place.
The Gospel reading at the Mass in Christendom's largest church recounted the Biblical story of how Mary and Jesus had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be registered for a census ordered by Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus.
"So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary. We see the tracks of entire families forced to set out in our own day. We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away, but driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones," Francis said.
Even the shepherds who the Bible says were the first to see the child Jesus were "forced to live on the edges of society" and considered dirty, smelly foreigners, he said. "Everything about them generated mistrust. They were men and women to be kept at a distance, to be feared."
Pope Francis called for a "new social imagination ... in which none have to feel that there is no room for them on this earth."
The 81-year-old pope, who was born in Argentina but is of Italian descent, has made defence of migrants a major plank of his papacy, often putting him at odds with politicians.
In his Christmas Day address, Pope Francis called for "peace for Jerusalem" and "mutual trust" on the Korean peninsula as he highlighted the suffering of children in conflicts across the world.
In the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" address in Saint Peter's Square, the pontiff spoke of "growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians", hoping that the "will to resume dialogue may prevail between the parties and that a negotiated solution can finally be reached, one that would allow the peaceful coexistence of two states".
"Let us pray that confrontation may be overcome on the Korean peninsula and that mutual trust may increase in the interest of the world as a whole," the pope said.
