In his first Christmas address, Pope Leo XIV expressed his hope that the parties in the Russo-Ukrainian war would ‘find the courage’ to start engaging in direct and sincere peace negotiations; and reminded all that while peace comes from the Lord, everyone should take on their own share of responsibility in creating it.

‘The leaders of the most successful small or medium-sized countries tend to be acutely aware of the dexterity required to maintain security…it seems very unlikely that they and others like them will get lost in their own imagination or succumb to the self-fulfilling fatalism of the postmodernist cosmopolitan mind that gave birth to the “end of history”, the “rules-based liberal international order”, and all the rest of that dangerous nonsense.’

‘The comical mercy the victorious mice show the cats makes Cat City the perfect watch with children this Christmas.’

‘On Christmas day in 1944 Hungary, illusion and reality collided. The promise of “liberation” or “redemption” was drowned out by violence, coercion, and fear on all sides. What survives of that Christmas are the testimonies, the fragmentary voices that reveal how ordinary lives were crushed between two brutal systems at the very moment meant for peace.’

The December issue of the National Film Institute’s series has been published, presenting the most important events captured on film in December 1925, including the record amount of snow that fell on Budapest a hundred years ago.

Jesus is the Christ in the flesh, the Son of God who became the saviour of mankind. This is what the Holy Scriptures say about him, and they also affirm that through Mary he became a blood descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Judah and the line of King David. Thus, as an ethnically Jewish man, he fulfilled the Law and died for our sins.