Antonino Galofaro (correspondent in Milan) / Photo credit: MASSIMO VALICCHIA / NURPHOTO / NURPHOTO VIA AFP
Pope Francis celebrated his traditional New Year’s Mass this Monday. And while his Christmas speech was largely devoted to the wars raging in the world, this speech by the sovereign pontiff was, this time, focused on violence against women.
This Monday, Pope Francis took advantage of his homily dedicated to the Virgin Mary to denounce a scourge that he wanted to place at the heart of his speech: violence against women. A theme which was at the center of the traditional New Year’s Mass, celebrated by the sovereign pontiff in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
“Whoever hurts one woman profanes God.”
“Every society needs to welcome the gift of women, of every woman, to respect them, to protect them, to value them, knowing that whoever hurts a single woman profanes God, born of a woman,” he said. -he declares. This violence is akin to “swirls of hatred”, said François. To get out of this, society must “look at women” and “give them more space” because they are “fundamental” and “everywhere, including in the Church,” the Pope insisted.
The pontiff also prayed for the victims of conflicts around the world, citing the Ukrainians, the Palestinians and the Israelis, the people of Sudan and the “Rohingya martyrs” in Burma. “At the end of the year, have the courage to ask yourself how many lives have been torn apart in armed conflicts, how many deaths,” he proclaimed after the Angelus prayer in Saint Peter’s Square .