Pope Francis received participants in the annual Vatican Christmas concert on December 16—the day after a separate concert for the poor with a different lineup of performers.
“You lend your voices to these celebrated Christmas melodies, and each of you brings to them your own individuality, your own ‘timbre,’” the Pope said, as he contrasted this “diversity of cultures and languages” with the “uniform, homogenized” nature of our “technocratic societies.”
“Dear friends, I know that today, as you sing, you will also be thinking of all those who are presently living in sorrow and fear on account of war,” he added. “So many wars! Tragically, even in the land of Jesus.”