Embrace light and look for the good in others, say pope and archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster

The pope has said that “darkness in human hearts” results in religious persecution, social injustice, armed conflicts and fear of migrants.

In his Christmas Day message to the world, Pope Francis said: “There is darkness in human hearts, yet the light of Christ is greater still. There is darkness in economic, geopolitical and ecological conflicts, yet greater still is the light of Christ.”

Thousands of people were in St Peter’s Square in Rome to hear the pontiff’s Urbi et Orbi (city and world) address. He told them and millions listening to his words around the world that change starts in the hearts of individuals. Despite the scale of global problems, people could make a difference within their own communities.

Francis called for peace in the Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Venezuela and Ukraine, and highlighted the persecution of Christians by militant groups in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.

On refugees and migrants, he said: “It is injustice that makes them cross deserts and seas that become cemeteries. It is injustice that forces them to endure unspeakable forms of abuse, enslavement of every kind and torture in inhumane detention camps.”

He added: “It is injustice that turns them away from places where they might have hope for a dignified life, but instead find themselves before walls of indifference.”

He appealed to God to “soften our often stony and self-centred hearts, and make them channels of his love. May he bring his smile, through our poor faces, to all the children of the world: to those who are abandoned and those who suffer violence.”

The archbishop of Canterbury also delivered a message about light and darkness in his Christmas sermon at Canterbury Cathedral.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, delivers his Christmas Day sermon at Canterbury Cathedral. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

Justin Welby warned against neglecting the poor and the weak, and praised the international work of NGOs, the Department for International Development – slated for possible closure by the government – and the Foreign Office, which “show the very best of our country”.

He spoke of the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, describing scenes he witnessed during a visit earlier this year.

Canterbury was “a city of peace”, he said. “Now imagine a city five times this size where its citizens face disease and war this December 25th. I was there in October. It is called Beni. It has been at the centre of the second worst outbreak of Ebola; about 3,000 people have died.”

Patients were treated in air-conditioned plastic cells, he said. One contained a family with a seriously ill mother. “The young children were with her, one of them with no clothes, a tiny toddler being watched over and cared for, as best they could, by his elder siblings.”

Militia groups were fighting nearby, and many had infiltrated the city, he said. “A local resident called it the heart of darkness. The butchery and cruelty of the militia groups defied any other description.”

Darkness was a “monster”, he said. “Its growling claims seem to call out with a louder volume than the love-filled whispers of the light. We see the shadows out of the corner of our eyes.”

Darkness pressed in on people’s deep fears and was manipulated by “those who stir fear for their own purposes, both within and outside the life of the church”.

The shadows of darkness could be the violence of the Congo or of London Bridge; or political; or “purely personal, from family feuds, relationship problems, illness”, he said.

In contrast, light was “life and love, and brings hope. In the presence of the light of Jesus Christ, dark is ultimately powerless.”

In Beni, he said, “we saw the Ebola survivors who gave themselves, being immune, to helping those who were ill. We saw the selfless service of NGOs. We saw those from DfID and the Foreign Office, of whom we should be proud as they show the very best of our country. Above all we saw the unknown heroes.”

He went on: “When we neglect the poorest, the weakest, when we judge rather than love, do things to people not with them, we defy the example of the light of life, Jesus, who in love came to them, not to the wealthy. The true light brings hope.”

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Catholic archbishop of Westminster, called on people to find the good in others. He told worshippers at midnight mass at Westminster Cathedral: “We are a people who are to look one another in the eye and see there all that is good.”

He went on: “In this society, after so much bitter political discourse and division, this is what we need: to look each other in the eye and see the good that is there. Only then will our society become a place in which no one is afraid and all sense a welcome.”