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Pope Benedict condemns commercialisation of Christmas


Mtoday news / Mail

Vatican, Dec 24 : Christmas celebrations got underway last night with Pope Benedict XVI holding a midnight mass service at a packed St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

 

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Highlight of the Christian calendar: Pope Benedict conducts the service under the dome of St Peter’s

The Pontiff used the ceremony to condemn the ’superficial glitter’ that now surrounds the holiday, urging the faithful to instead discover its true meaning.

The traditional service began with a papal procession through the church shortly after 10pm local time. Wearing cream and gold colored vestments, Pope Benedict proceeded into St. Peter’s Basilica standing on a moving platform - a new concession to spare the 84-year-old pontiff the fatigue of having to walk up and down the long center aisle.


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Christian celebration: Pope Benedict conducts holy mass at St. Peter’s Basilica to mark the nativity of Jesus Christ

In his sermon, Benedict lamented that Christmas has become an increasingly commercial celebration that obscures the simplicity of the message of Christ’s birth.

 

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’Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light,’ he said.

 

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Papal blessing: During the service, Pope Benedict highlighted his concern that the true meaning of Christmas had been lost

It was the second time in as many days that Pope Benedict has pointed to the need to rediscover faith to confront the problems facing the world today. In his end-of-year meeting with Vatican officials on Thursday, he said Europe’s financial crisis was largely ’based on the ethical crisis looming over the Old Continent’.


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Nativity scene: Spectators look on during the unveiling ceremony of the crib in St Peter’s Square earlier yesterday evening

 

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Sacred site: Nuns pray before the start of the Christmas mass in Saint Peter’s Square

 

The Christmas Eve mass was moved up to 10pm from midnight several years ago to spare the Pope a late night. This morning he must deliver the important Christmas Day ’Urbi et Orbi’ speech, Latin for ’to the city and the world’. He will also offer brief Christmas greetings in 65 languages.

The speech, delivered from the central loggia of St. Peter’s overlooking the piazza, is usually a survey of sorts of the hardships and wars confronting the globe. It is understood that this year he will base his message on the Arab Spring and the global economic crisis.

There follows an intense two weeks of Christmas-related public appearances that will test the pontiff’s stamina amid signs that fatigue is starting to slow him down.

Hours before the evening Mass began, Benedict lit a candle in his studio window overlooking St. Peter’s Square in a traditional sign of peace. A few hundred people had gathered in the square to watch the candle lighting and the unveiling of the Vatican’s larger-than-life nativity scene.

Next weekend, the Pope will preside over a New Year’s Eve vespers service, followed by a New Year’s Day Mass. A few days later he’ll celebrate Epiphany Mass followed by his traditional baptising of babies in the Vatican’s frescoed Sistine Chapel.

Security was tight at last night’s celebration, as it has been in recent years. In both 2008 and 2009 there were Christmas Eve security breaches, in which a woman with a history of psychiatric problems and wearing a telltale red sweatshirt jumped the wooden security barrier along the basilica’s central aisle.

In 2008, the Pope’s security detail blocked her from getting to Benedict. But in 2009, she managed to grab Benedict’s vestments and pulled him to the ground. The Pope was unhurt and continued along with the service, but a French cardinal who was nearby fell and broke his hip.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aQObc6hWhOk


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Comments on this Article
A. S. Mathew, U.S.A. Sun, December-25-2011, 7:59

What Pope Benedict has said is 101% true. The department stores in the U.S. gets the biggest percentage of their annual sales at the brief Christimas time. It is totally commercialized, and the saddest reality is that hardly any decoration showing the birth of JESUS can be found in the malls or stores this year. We can find more Christmas decorations in India or in the Gulf countries. It is terribly sad that the birth of the Saviour of the world has been transformed as a money-making opportunity by the business world.

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