Pope praises women as peacemakers in New Year homily

Pope Francis ushered in the new year by praising the skills women bring to promoting peace in the world, and equated violence against women to an offence against God.

The Roman Catholic Church marks January 1 as a day dedicated to world peace, and a late-morning Mass at St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City paid tribute to the Virgin Mary’s special place in the faith as the mother of Jesus.

Mothers “know how to overcome obstacles and disagreements, and to instil peace,” Francis said during his homily.

“In this way, they transform problems into opportunities for rebirth and growth. They can do this because they know how to ‘keep’, to hold together the various threads of life.

“We need such people, capable of weaving the threads of communion in place of the barbed wire of conflict and division.”

He urged everyone to step up efforts to promote mothers and to protect women.

“How much violence is directed against women! Enough! To hurt a woman is to insult God, who from a woman took on our humanity,” the Pope said, referring to the Christian belief that Jesus was the son of God.

He lavished praise on women, including mothers, saying they “look at the world not to exploit it but so that it can have life. Women who, seeing with the heart, can combine dreams and aspirations with concrete reality, without drifting into abstraction and sterile pragmatism.”

While pledging in his papacy to give women greater roles in the church, Francis has also made clear that the priesthood is reserved for men.

In a tweet before the New Year’s Day Mass, Francis elaborated on his hope and strategy for peace.

“All can work together to build a more peaceful world, starting from the hearts of individuals and relationships in the family, then within society and with the environment, and all the way up to relationships between peoples and nations,” he wrote.

Apart from the Pope and members of a chorus made up of boys and adults, participants in the Mass wore face masks as part of Covid-19 precautions.

Francis, who is 85 and vaccinated against coronavirus, wore a surgical mask during a New Year’s Eve prayer service which a Vatican cardinal presided over at the basilica.

It was a rare departure from his shunning of a face covering during public ceremonies throughout the two-year pandemic.