Pope Leo XIV calls for 'peace and consolation' in first Christmas Mass
Pope Leo XIV presides over the Christmas Morning Mass at St Peter's Basilica on December 25, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Leo is the first Pope to preside over the Christmas Morning Mass since Pope John Paul II more than thirty years ago. (Pho
VATICAN CITY - Pope Leo XIV presided over his first Christmas Mass at St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, calling for "peace and consolation" for victims of wars, injustice, political stability, religious persecution and terrorism.
The pope addressed some 26,000 people from the loggia overlooking St. Peter's Square for the traditional papal "Urbi et Orbi'' address, Latin for "To the City and to the World,'' which serves as a summary of the woes facing the world.
Leo revived the tradition of offering Christmas greetings in multiple languages abandoned by his predecessor, Pope Francis. He received especially warm cheers when he made his greetings in his native English and Spanish, the language of his adopted country of Peru where he served first as a missionary and then as archbishop.
What they're saying:
"In becoming man, Jesus took upon himself our fragility, identifying with each one of us: with those who have nothing left and have lost everything, like the inhabitants of Gaza; with those who are prey to hunger and poverty, like the Yemeni people; with those who are fleeing their homeland to seek a future elsewhere, like the many refugees and migrants who cross the Mediterranean or traverse the American continent,'' the pontiff said.
In his homily, Leo underlined that peace can emerge only through dialogue.
"There will be peace when our monologues are interrupted and, enriched by listening, we fall to our knees before the humanity of the other," he said.
Pope Leo’s first Christmas Eve Mass in Vatican City
We have all the live coverage this holiday season as Pope Leo XIV presides over his first Christmas Eve Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. This comes after earlier this week when Pope Leo XIV made an appeal for “one full day of peace throughout the world” in a Christmas address outside Castel Gandolfo in Rome. “I once again make this appeal to all people of good will: that, at least on the feast of the birth of the Savior, one day of peace may be respected,” the first American pontiff said Tuesday.
Christmas at the Vatican
Dig deeper:
The Christmas tree in St. Peter's square in The Vatican. (Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP via Getty Images)
During Christmas, the Vatican is transformed to celebrate the season. An 80-foot-tall Christmas tree greets visitors as well as a life-size Nativity Scene.
A nativity scene from Mexico is also set up at St. Peter's Basilica. Photo: Sabine Dobel/dpa (Photo by Sabine Dobel/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
Once again this year, an international exhibition "100 Nativity Scenes in the Vatican" is on display featuring 132 Nativity scenes from 23 countries.
The backstory:
Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, was elected as the 267th pontiff on May 8, 2025, after the College of Cardinals met in Vatican City following the death of Pope Francis to select a new Vicar of Christ. Following a lifetime of dedication to the Catholic Church in both Chicago and Peru, Prevost was elected as Francis' successor and the first pope from the United States.
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Robert Prevost addresses the crowd from the main central loggia balcony of the St Peter's Basilica for the first time, after the cardinals ended the conclave, in The Vatican, on May 8, 2025. (Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)
Born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, Pope Leo XIV is one of three siblings. His brothers are John Prevost and Louis Martin Prevost. His passion for the Catholic faith ignited at a young age, leading him to enter the seminary immediately after eighth grade. Among his interests, Pope Leo XIV is an amateur tennis player, a Chicago White Sox fan, and he obtained Peruvian citizenship in 2015.
The Source: The Associated Press contributed to this report. The information in this article was sourced from The Vatican, EWTN, FOX News, and previous FOX Television Stations reporting.