In the Rebibbia New Complex Prison in Rome, Pope Francis opened a Holy Door and celebrated Mass for prisoners on 26 December. “I wanted the second Holy Door I open to be here at a prison,” Pope Francis explained. For the 2025 Jubilee of Hope, the first Door to be opened was the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on 24 December 2024, then, for the first-time ever, the Pope opened the Holy Door at a prison.
Arriving at the Rebibbia New Complex Prison in Rome, the Pope spoke about the importance of opening the Door there. In front of the prison’s chapel, the Church of Our Father, he explained that he wanted everyone to “have the opportunity to fling open the doors to their hearts and to understand that hope never disappoints.”
After walking through the Holy Door himself, the Pope presided over Mass in the church. In his homily, Pope Francis reflected on the historic reason for his visit, describing it as “a beautiful gesture of opening.” But more than simply opening doors, the Pope encouraged the prisoners present, to open their hearts. Brotherhood, he said, is “open hearts.”
The Pope warned against closed, hardened hearts, which keep us from living. He explained that the Jubilee gives us the grace to “fling open” our hearts to hope. Even in the most difficult and challenging times, he reassured, hope does not disappoint.

The UN children’s agency Unicef says that in addition to Israeli attacks, children are now dying from the cold and lack of adequate shelter. Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said, ‘These preventable deaths reveal the desperate and worsening situation in which families and children in Gaza are living.’
Elsewhere, media in Israel is reporting that Israeli health authorities have completed a report to be submitted to the UN on the health of Israeli prisoners released by Hamas.
Reports suggest prisoners have suffered numerous problems, including losing 10-17 per cent of their body weight while in captivity due to malnutrition, being beaten and kept in isolation. Children were also beaten and women subjected to sexual violence.
In addition, the hostages did not have proper medical care. As a result, some elderly hostages, for example, developed thrombosis when forced to remain in place for long periods of time.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army has ended a military operation at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. The hospital was put out of service as a result of the raid. Reports suggest the Israeli army arrested 240 people, whom it claims are members of the extremist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in the operation. The army also says it has arrested the director of the hospital. The World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly called for healthcare to be protected in Gaza.

“The light of Christmas is so intense and so great that it rises above all difficulties, above any aggression and any bombing.” The Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine, Visvaldas Kulbokas, offered this reflection after the Christmas Eve Mass at the Latin Cathedral in Kharkiv, where he stood alongside the Pope’s almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who serves as the Prefect of the Vatican’s Di-castery for Charity, as they celebrated the Christ Child’s birth despite the intense shelling end-ured by the city. This marks the second year that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine cele-brated Christmas on December 25th.
But most importantly, as the Nuncio noted, “Jesus was present, born for us. And when Jesus is born in a place under constant attack and bombardment, His light becomes even more visible, it shines brightly.” The Lord, he suggested, was still their light shining in the midst of darkness, as the readings from the Prophet Isaiah proclaim. “These,” Archbishop Kulbokas continued, “are words that resonate power-fully in these war-torn places, because it is precisely the light of joy and hope that Christmas brings us. Moreover, he stressed, “It prepares us for the Jubilee of the Holy Year, as we knew that, at that same moment in Rome, the Holy Father was opening the Holy Door.”
It was a beautiful and intense celebration, but also a night of attacks, with missiles and drones exploding near the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Cathedral. Yet, as the Nuncio noted, “Thanks be to God, the church remained intact for the Christmas Day Divine Liturgy. The glass and everything else was in place.” Despite the bombing of Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which left over 500,000 people without heating and water, Christmas was still celebrated.

For 80,000 people in Italy and 250,000 others around the world, Christmas Day lunch was prepared by the Community of Sant’Egidio and the Italian police, the Carabinieri. This year, the police delivered presents for the children and desserts for the meals organized around Rome.
On the first full day of the Jubilee Year of Hope, the Community of Sant’Egidio prepared meals on Christmas Day for the homeless, elderly, and families struggling to provide. The meals came together through the support of volunteers, whose aim was to spread the message of hope to those facing challenges and “to everyone in a time marked by deep crises in various parts of the world and too many wars.” For everyone who came to the lunch, distinctions between class, pay, social status, or heritage all disappeared and everyone received a personalized gift.
A tradition dating back to 1982, when the first Christmas meal with the poor was held, the celebration began at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. The event did not only take place in Rome but in 70 other countries. In the Trastevere neighbourhood of Rome, the Basilica was filled with people from all walks of life, including refugees who came to Italy using the humanitarian corridors. The menu for the lunch included lasagna, meatloaf, lentils, and traditional Christmas desserts.

Pope Francis on December 07 encouraged the group of twenty-one new cardinals from across the globe to “walk in the way of Jesus: together, with humility, wonder and joy.” Presiding at Holy Mass for the Ordinary Public Consistory for the Creation of New Cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Pope reminded the prelates receiving the red hat, that just as Jesus’ ascent to Jerusalem was not an ascent to worldly glory but to the glory of God, they too must put the Lord at the centre and be builders of communion and unity.
Recalling the Gospel of Mark, the Pope said that in Jerusalem, Jesus would die on the cross to restore us to life. He took a “difficult uphill path that would lead him to Calvary,” he explained, while the disciples were thinking of a “smooth downhill path for the triumphant Messiah.” The Pope noted that the same thing can happen to us: “Our hearts can go astray, allowing us to be dazzled by the allure of prestige, the seduction of power, by an overly human zeal for the Lord.” “That is why,” he continued, “we need to look within, to stand before God in humility (…) and ask: Where is my heart going? Where is it directed? Have I perhaps taken the wrong road?”
The Holy Father focused the rest of his homily on how the new Cardinals are called to make every effort to walk in the path of Jesus. “To walk in the path of Jesus means above all to return to him and to put him back at the centre of everything,” he said, warning them to look out for secondary things and external appearances that can overshadow what truly counts.
The very word “Cardinal”, he explained, refers to a hinge inserted into a door to secure, support and reinforce it.

The doors of the newly restored Notre-Dame of Paris Cathedral were officially reopened to the public during a ceremony on December 07 just over five years after a blaze ravaged the iconic structure’s roof, frame, and spire. The celebration, which began at around 7:20 p.m. local time, was attended by some 1,500 people, including about 40 heads of state, including U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Breaking five years of silence, the bell of Notre-Dame, known as the “bourdon,” rang out across Paris. This was the first step in the reopening office, initiated by three knocks on the cathedral’s central portal, the Portal of the Last Judgment, by the archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich. The opening of the doors was set to the music of the polyphonic piece “Totus Tuus,” composed in 1987 by Henryk Gorecki during Pope John Paul II’s visit to Poland and sung by the 150 young members of the Maîtrise de Notre Dame.
“May the rebirth of this admirable church be a prophetic sign of the renewal of the Church in France,” Pope Francis said in a letter read by the apostolic nuncio of France, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, after a tribute to the firefighters who saved the 800-year-old cathedral from the flames and the French president’s speech. ”I invite all the baptized who will joyfully enter this cathedral to feel a legitimate pride and reclaim their faith heritage,” he added.

Pope Francis issued a heartfelt plea for peace dur-ing Angelus on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conce-ption on December 08, urg-ing international leaders to broker ceasefires in conflict zones by Christmas.
“I appeal to governments and the international community that a ceasefire may be reached on all war fronts by the Christmas celebrations,” the pope said from the window of the Apostolic Palace, addressing pilgrims and visitors gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
The pontiff specifically called for continued prayers for peace in “tormented Ukraine, in the Middle East – Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, and now Syria – in Myanmar, in Sudan, and wherever people suffer from war and violence.”

Latin Patriarch of Jeru-salem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, said that Pope Francis is known by the children of Holy Family Church in Gaza as “the grandfather.”
During a Dec. 6 press conference organized by Aid to the Church in Need International, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem told journalists “the pope is calling every day at 7 p.m.” “It became a kind of status quo,” Pizzaballa said with a laugh. “Maybe half a minute, 30 seconds, maybe more, maybe less. And now he became the grandfather of the children, the pope, because he’s talking. They now know that he is calling.” For the community of Gaza it is a very big support – psychological, emotional, and spiritual,” he added.
This Christmas, in spite of the war and poor conditions, Pizzaballa said Holy Family Church in Gaza is preparing something special. “Christmas is the feast of the children,” he said. “What we will try and do, if we are able, is to introduce not just food but also some toys. Something that will make a difference to the everyday life for children.”

The Nicaraguan dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his “co-president” and wife, Rosario Murillo, this week kidnapped and expelled from the country Father Floriano Ceferino Vargas, a priest of the Diocese of Bluefields.
Medardo Mairena, a former peasant leader now in exile, stated on X that “Father Floriano Ceferino Vargas, parish priest of the Church of San Martín de Porres in Nueva Guinea, has been exiled by the Sandinista regime,” further specifying that the priest is now in Panama.
In an interview with EWTN Noticias, lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina said it is not known exactly why Vargas was kidnapped and expelled from the country. However, Molina said, “just because you are religious in Nicaragua, the dictatorship can kidnap you.”
Molina, who has documented hundreds of attacks by the Nicaraguan government against the Catholic Church in recent years, also indicated that it is possible that the priest had made “some comment that they [the dictatorship] consider hostile to the supposed revolution, which at every moment they say must be defended.”
The researcher also commented that, in the midst of everything, it is good to know that the priest “is not going to be in the prisons of Nicaragua, where more than 40 mechanisms of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment are practiced.”
The priest was arrested after celebrating Mass in his parish. The kidnapping and expulsion of Vargas happened the same week Pope Francis sent a letter to the country’s Catholics in which he encouraged them and reminded them that faith and hope “work miracles.”
Growing concern for the well-being of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua was also expressed this week by the bishops of Central America, who convoked for Dec. 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, a day of prayer for the persecuted Church in the neighbouring country.

Christmas this season in the Holy Land will be celebratory, despite ongoing blood-shed and war, the patriarchs of the Holy Land said, as Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa encouraged pilgrims to come back to the birthplace of Jesus.
“Pilgrimage is now absolutely safe and also important for society,” Pizzaballa said in Cologne Dec. 3, reported KNA, a Catholic news agency in Germany. The cardinal hoped that the relative calming of the war situation in Israel will lead to more pilgrims arriving again over the Christmas season.
Pilgrimages and religious tourism are an important economic factor for many Christians in the region, with many not able to make any income for their families as tourists disappeared and stores across pilgri-mage sites remain closed for the 14th month since Oct. 7, 2023. That is when Hamas attacked Israel killing 1,200 people, which ignited the Israel-Hamas war focusing on the Gaza Strip, destroying vast parts of the enclave and killing over 45,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
As Advent approached, the patriarchs and heads of the churches in Jerusalem issued a statement, however, that war this year won’t stop the joyful celebration of Christmas in the land of Jesus.
This year, the patriarchs said, they “encourage our congregations and people to fully commemorate the approach and arrival of Christ’s birth by giving public signs of Christian hope.” At the same time, the patriarchs asked all of the faithful to keep the suffering people of the Holy Land in their prayers, “reaching out to them with deeds of kindness and charity, and welcoming them as Christ himself has welcomed each of us.” This way, they said, “we will echo the Christmas story itself, where the angels announced to the shepherds glad tidings of Christ’s birth in the midst of similarly dark times in our region … offering to them and to the entire world a message of divine hope and peace.”