The Patriarch of Lisbon warned today that we are living “the atrocity of bipolarization, which imposes the obligation of provocation, of irreconcilable confrontation, which only generates division and is incapable of fostering a culture of cooperation and inclusion”.
Rui Valério was speaking at the Christmas Day homily in Lisbon’s Patriarchal Cathedral, which was packed with people, including the faithful and tourists who took the opportunity to attend the Christmas carols and mass and to see the inside of this centuries-old church.
“Christmas, the celebration par excellence of welcome, is an invitation to openness, to make this openness a feature of our identity,” said Rui Valério at the first Mass he presided over as Patriarch of Lisbon.
For the prelate, there is a need to create spaces “to receive and welcome” those most in need, such as those who are “in search of work, bread and better living conditions”.
“Culturally, today we are living through the atrocity of bipolarization, which imposes the obligation of provocation, of irreconcilable confrontation, which only generates division and is incapable of fostering a culture of cooperation and inclusion, which our country so desperately needs, particularly at such a decisive moment as the one we are experiencing,” reiterated Rui Valério.
In this way, he said: “As well as shining a light on our relationship with foreigners, it also involves those who are closest to us and share with us the daily struggle to build truer days of solidarity.”
In the patriarch’s words, the loss of reference to the Holy Father means “depriving human beings of their main personal identity, which is to be his son, and a much-loved son” and “the proposal that emerges from Christmas shows how much and what human beings themselves lose when separated from God, the sense of the fullness of life”.
During the Christmas Mass, which lasted about an hour and a half, he spoke above all about welcome, but also about the “renewed image of the human being that emerges from the Birth of Jesus”.