Pope, in Christmas Message, Offers Sympathy for Homeless and Jobless

In his Christmas message to the world, Pope John Paul II offered solidarity to the homeless and jobless. Then, in his own gesture of closeness to the suffering, the pope announced that he will journey to Assisi and another quake-stricken Italian town.

Due to frail health, the pope no longer leads the main, midmorning Christmas Day Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, giving him time to rest up after the nearly two-hour-long Midnight Mass.

But despite the break, John Paul’s voice sounded weary Thursday as he read his “Urbi et Orbi”--Latin for “to the city and to the world”--message at noon from the central balcony of St. Peter’s.

His surprise announcement that he would go Jan. 3 to pray at the tomb of St. Francis in Assisi and to another town hard hit by a pair of quakes in September appeared aimed at deflecting widespread concern that the pope is slowing down.

The one-day trip to Italy’s Umbria and Marche regions in the central Apennine mountains, where thousands of people whose homes were devastated by the Sept. 26 quakes are still living in tents and trailers, comes 18 days before the pope takes off on the first papal trip to Cuba.

In past years, the pope used his Christmas Day message, broadcast to dozens of countries, to decry conflicts in many parts of the world, including the Middle East and Africa. But this year, John Paul, perhaps to abbreviate the speech somewhat, named no specific place, although references were often plain.

Christmas, he said, is “filled with so many calls for peace and brotherhood” from people “who long for freedom and harmony, in situations of disturbing ethnic and political violence.”