POPE FRANCIS, CHOSEN MAN OF THE YEAR AWARD BY BGP

Pope Francis kisses a statue of Baby Jesus as he celebrates the Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) Credit and thanks to the Associated Press for much of this article to which we have included comments and notes from BGP) .| Vatican City | Posted: December 25, 2014 11:41 am | Updated: December 25, 2014 3:53 pm   (BootheGlobalPerspectives or abbreviated BGP note:  On Christmas day, we wanted to mark this day by honoring a man who is spending his energy in positive actions to help and encourage mankind.  This is more worthy of our excited electrons than focusing on men who create negative harm on mankind.  Pope Francis, is amazing. Note his speaking and travel schedule and it would be a challenge for any of us, not to mention a 78 year old man. His words have been on target, for compassion, for love, for healing, for hope.    

So, this Christmas Day, we highlight the Pope, and give thanks to him, and to AP, for posting the below from the Vatican.

We at BootheGlobalPerspectives have named Pope Francis the Global Perspectives MAN OF THE YEAR, for his energy, his compassion, his love and for the positive impact he is having on the world.) 

Pope Francis led Christmas Eve mass in the Vatican calling for “tenderness” and “warmth” after a violence-plagued year as millions of Christians began marking the holiday. The Argentine pontiff’s brief homily was replete with Gospel references in his Christmas Eve mass, broadcast live in 3D for the first time.

“Do we have the courage to welcome with tenderness the difficulties and problems of those who are near to us?” the pope asked in Saint Peter’s Basilica, filled with some 5,000 worshippers. “Or do we prefer impersonal solutions, perhaps effective but devoid of the warmth of the Gospel? How much the world needs tenderness today!” he said.

Pope Francis holds the pastoral staff as he celebrates the Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2014. Pope Francis is celebrating Christmas Eve with a late-night Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and a phone call to some Iraqi refugees forced to flee their homes by Muslim militants. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

The leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics also called on “the arrogant, the proud… (and) those closed off to others” to meet life “with goodness, with meekness.” Ahead of the celebrations, the pontiff voiced concern about the growing persecution of Christians, some of whom he said had been “brutally driven out” of areas where they have lived since New Testament times. Francis delivered a Christmas message via telephone to refugees displaced to Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region.

“Dear brothers, I am close to you, very close to you in my heart,”

"Dear Brothers, I am close to you, very close to you in my heart," the pope was quoted as telling the refugees by Italian press agency AGI. “The children and the elderly are in my heart,” Francis also told the Iraqi refugees in the Ankawa camp. In Baghdad, Chaldean patriarch Louis Sako said about 150,000 Christians had been displaced by an offensive spearheaded by the Islamic State group, which has targeted Christians and other minorities, with dozens leaving Iraq each day.

Iraq’s displaced Christians “still live in a tragic situation and there are no quick solutions for them,” Sako told AFP, saying that particularly this Christmas, they needed reassurances that they “are not left alone and not forgotten”. In Syria, Christians in the war-torn city of Homs were enjoying their first Christmas in three years in the Hamidiyeh neighbourhood, with a brightly coloured tree and a manger made from rubble set up in the middle of the ruins.

“Our joy is indescribable,” said Taghrid Naanaa, of the Pope's message to them. 

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/world/europe/pope-calls-for-tenderness-as-millions-celebrate-christmas/#sthash.6uzJD1pQ.dpuf

(BGP comments: The phone call of Pope Francis and nighttime Mass gives an insight to how hard this Pope is working.  He is 78 years old but including phone calls, meetings, presentations, letters, look at his event schedule for the next few weeks . The entire world takes pause and listens to his carefully crafted traditional Christmas day speech. Then he will be doing  New Year's Eve vespers, and 2015 greetings a little later. On Jan. 6 he'll celebrate Epiphany Mass, and on Jan. 11 he'll baptize babies in the Sistine Chapel. January 11, Pope Francis treats the world with a foreign policy speech, and this will be one to pay attention to, because this goes to his accredited diplomats who go throughout the world. Then the Pope is off to trips to Shi Lanka and the Philippines.)

The Mass came just days after Francis excoriated the Vatican bureaucracy for their sins, asking them to show more kindness, compassion, and love to individuals, as individuals.

Many of the same cardinals, bishops and priests who received the dressing down were on hand for the Mass. Several have spoken out in recent days saying Francis was merely asking them to examine their consciences, as any Jesuit spiritual director would do, and to use the Christmas season to heal.