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Pope Delivers Christmas Blessing, Despite Fall

   Sabina Castelfranco 25 December 2009
   In   this   photo  released  by  the  Vatican's  L'Osservatore  Romano
   newspaper, Pope Benedict XVI gestures to the faithful during the "Urbi
   et  Orbi"  (to  the City and to the World) blessing and message in St.
   Peter's square at the Vatican, Friday, Dec. 25, 2009.

Photo: AP

   Pope  Benedict  XVI gestures to the faithful during the "Urbi et Orbi"
   (to  the  City  and  to the World) blessing and message in St. Peter's
   square at the Vatican, 25 Dec 2009

   Pope  Benedict  has  delivered  his traditional Christmas day blessing
   before  tens  of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square, just hours
   after he was knocked to the ground by a woman at Christmas eve Mass.
   Speaking  in  multiple languages Friday morning, the Pope lamented the
   effects  of  the global financial crisis, conflicts in the Middle East
   and  the  Democratic  Republic  of  Congo,  and  political  turmoil in
   Madagascar, Niger, and Guinea.
   But  he  said Christians around the world - including a "tiny flock in
   Iraq" - work with "vigor and generosity" for "peace and coexistence."
   A  Vatican  spokesman  said the woman who rushed him the night before,
   Susanna    Maiolo,   a   25-year-old   Italian-Swiss   national,   was
   psychologically unstable and had been taken to a hospital.
   The spokesman said the woman was unarmed.
   The  pope  was  unhurt  in Thursday's incident, but 87-year-old French
   Cardinal  Roger Etchegaray was also knocked over and taken away with a
   broken leg.
   The  vatian  spokesman  said  the  woman  also tried to reach the Pope
   during  midnight  Mass  last year.  That time, security guards stopped
   her before she reached him.
   The Vatican held what is usually a traditional midnight Christmas Mass
   two hours early in deference to the 82-year-old pope's health.
   He  urged  people  to  unite  and  emerge from what he calls their own
   private  world  which  makes them prisoners of their desires, selfish,
   and detached from the truth.
   Meanwhile,   U.S.  President  Barack  Obama  has  delivered  Christmas
   greetings to military men and women far from home and family.
   Mr.  Obama said he is awed by what he called their selfless spirit and
   eagerness to serve.
   The  president also said he was moved by the war wounded he has met in
   military  hospitals  and humbled by the stories of whose who have made
   the ultimate sacrifice.
   Earlier,  Mr.  Obama  placed  Christmas Eve calls to 10 members of the
   U.S. armed forces involved in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. They
   included two service members from each of the five military branches.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.

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