Pope compares story of Jesus to plight of migrants in Christmas Eve Mass

Pope Francis strongly defended immigrants at his Christmas Eve Mass on Sunday, comparing them to Mary and Joseph finding no place to stay in Bethlehem and saying faith demands that foreigners be welcomed.

Francis, celebrating his fifth Christmas as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman 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.

Security was stepped up, with participants checked as they approached St. Peter’s Square even before going through metal detectors to enter the basilica. The square had been cleared out hours earlier so security procedures could be put in place.

The Gospel reading at the Mass in Christendom’s largest church recounted the Biblical story of how Mary and Joseph had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be registered for a census ordered by Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus.

“So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary. We see the tracks of entire families forced to set out in our own day. We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away, but driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones,” Francis said.

Even the shepherds who the Bible says were the first to see the child Jesus were “forced to live on the edges of society” and considered dirty, smelly foreigners, he said. “Everything about them generated mistrust. They were men and women to be kept at a distance, to be feared.”
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How Angela Merkel remains one of world's most successful political leaders

There are very few political leaders who have perfected the art of having their political cake and eating it too. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is one of these.

Internationally, she is renowned as the leader of Europe who seemingly single-handedly rehabilitated Germany’s international reputation by welcoming refugees with the catchphrase “we can do it”. With electoral pressure building, however, she publicly distanced herself from this stance as the CDU/CSU party faithful sent back the message that they were not so sure.

Now, by accepting their demand for a Bundestag vote, she has outflanked Martin Schulz’s Social Democrats by securing the passage of marriage equality as one of her government’s achievements, despite openly voting against it herself. The issue has been effectively neutralised.

Before marriage equality had arisen as an issue, Merkel had also done the same with immigration and the hot-button issue of asylum seekers. As one report put it, Merkel’s “summer of welcome” that saw asylum seekers march across Europe to reach the safe-haven of Germany has been followed by a long winter of conservative base-pleasing changes to the country’s political asylum laws. These have made it much tougher to successfully claim refugee status and much easier for unsuccessful asylum seekers to be deported to countries such as Afghanistan.

Pushed by circumstances to the centre, Merkel’s CDU/CSU coalition has now steered back to the right on refugees. Given her 2010 statement that multiculturalism has “utterly failed”, this seems to be where she would prefer it to stay.

Merkel, who has been German chancellor for a remarkable 12 years, is facing an election in September. Electorally, her right-ward shift on migration has largely defused the threat from Germany’s rabidly anti-immigration, far-right “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) party, which has also been hit hard by internal divisions.
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