VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI has used his first Christmas message to issue a wake-up call to Catholics and to all humanity.
Addressing thousands in St Peter's Square, the pope said people of the 21st Century risked becoming "victims of their intellectual achievements". He decried the "menace" of terrorism, the "humiliation" of worldwide poverty and said pandemics and environmental destruction were dangerous new threats.
The Pope followed in the footsteps of his predecessor who died in April. Thousands of pilgrims, tourists and Romans gathered at a rain-soaked Vatican to hear Pope Benedict speak.
Fairness and wisdom: He urged the crowd not focus entirely on the "immense progress" made in science and technology during the previous millennium. "The men and women in our technical age risk becoming victims of their own intellectual and technical achievements, ending up in spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart," the Pope said.
His warnings about the series of dangers facing humanity today came ahead of traditional prayer calls for peace and goodwill around the world. He prayed for those working for peace and against conflict in Africa and Asia, and for harmony in Latin America. In the Holy Land, Iraq and Lebanon, the pope said, signs of hope need to be confirmed by action inspired by "fairness and wisdom".
As Christmas began, the head of Iraq's Chaldean Christian church prayed for peace in Iraq and elsewhere. Ceremonies in Baghdad were held before dusk on Saturday in advance of a curfew. "I do not want to make a distinction between Christians and Muslims, we are all Iraqis," said Emmanuel II Delly. "A car bomb kills without distinguishing between Christians and Muslims."
In Bethlehem, revered as the birthplace of Jesus, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the senior Catholic cleric in the Holy Land, said the region was "thirsting for peace". "God created you not to fear or to kill each other but to love each other, to build and to cooperate together," he told crowds in Bethlehem, where Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was attending his first Christmas Eve service.
USA - Insurers had their costliest year yet in 2005 as a deluge of natural disasters saw total insured losses of about $80 billion.
August's Hurricane Katrina in the US alone is expected to cost $45 billion in claims, the world's second-biggest reinsurance company said. This will make it the most expensive ever insured single event.
Total economic losses caused by hurricanes, earthquakes and floods in 2005 reached $225 billion in 2005, it said.
Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was previously the most expensive single catastrophe, causing losses of $22 billion, Swiss Re said.
This was followed by the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, costing nearly $21 billion.
Two other expensive storms in the US came in the wake of Katrina. Hurricane Rita cost $10 billion in insured losses and Wilma claimed $8 billion.
"The ongoing warm phase that has been measurable since the 1990s and the recent high hurricane frequency inspire little hope of the trend being reversed any time soon," Swiss Re warned.
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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