Pope Francis says immigrants must be respected because they are part of the global community.
While celebrating the Christmas Eve Mass, Pope Francis said justice must be served.
Meanwhile the Pontiff also prayed for numerous victims caused by the storm that has so far killed nearly 200 and left 70,000 homeless in the Philippines.
And just this morning, 20 people were instantly killed in a road accident in Philippines while on their way for the Christmas service.
Pope Francis strongly defended immigrants in his Christmas Eve Mass comparing them to Mary and Joseph finding no place to stay in Bethlehem and saying faith demands that foreigners be embraced.
Francis, celebrating his fifth Christmas as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, led a solemn Mass for about 10,000 people in St. Peter’s Basilica while many others followed the service from the square outside.
Wearing white vestments in the flower-bedecked church, Francis called for a “new social imagination … in which none have to feel that there is no room for them on this earth.”
On Christmas Day, Francis will deliver his twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and to the World”) blessing and message from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
