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Pope recovers from fall to lead midnight Christmas Mass

Dec 24, 2009, 23:46 GMT

Pope Benedict XVI lights the \'Lamp of Peace\' during the ceremony to inaugurate the Crib in Saint Peter\'s Square in Vatican City, 24 December 2009. EPA/OSSERVATORE ROMANO

Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI late Thursday fell briefly in a scuffle when a woman trying to get to the pontiff jumped a cordon barrier as Christmas midnight Mass began in St Peter's Basilica.

Shortly after the incident, the 82-year-old pontiff, who appeared unharmed, again took hold of the golden cross he was carrying before being knocked down, and continued to lead the procession for the beginning of the Mass.

Benedict, clad in gold-embroidered robes and wearing his bishop's mitre, then presided over the rest of the ceremony and delivered his homily.

French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who also fell in the scuffle, received some unspecified medical attention, news reports said.

The woman who was wearing red - initial reports had mentioned a man - was detained by Vatican guards. She is believed to suffer from psychological problems, ANSA news agency reported.

The Vatican's traditional midnight Mass this year began two hours earlier than usual in order to allow the pontiff some rest.

Earlier this month the Vatican denied Italian media speculation that the decision to begin the mass at 10 pm (2100 GMT) was due to unspecified 'health problems' afflicting the German-born pontiff.

At the time, papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi explained that the move - first announced by the Vatican in October - aimed to 'tire the Pope a bit less,' giving him a few extra hours sleep before his Christmas Day duties.

On Thursday night, thousands of people flocked to St Peter's Basilica for the ceremony. Many more followed the proceedings on giant video screens in St Peter's Square on a mild but damp winter's night.

In his Mass homily, Benedict stressed the need for people to abandon selfishness and show a willingness to accept God - an attitude, according to the pontiff, exemplified by the shepherds who in the fields near Bethlehem were informed by an angel of Jesus' birth.

'Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our little private world,' Benedict said in his homily.

'Selfishness, both individual and collective, makes us prisoners of our interests and desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another,' he added.

Citing the Gospel of Luke, the pontiff recalled the readiness shown by the shepherds, 'the simple souls,' who were the first to come to honour the newborn Jesus.

'God's sign, the sign given to the shepherds and to us, is not an astonishing miracle. God's sign is humility,' Benedict said. He stressed that God, through the baby Jesus, 'makes himself small ... he lets us touch him and he asks for our love.'

Human beings can become like God 'if we ourselves learn humility and hence true greatness, if we renounce violence and use only the weapons of truth and love,' the pope said.

Earlier Thursday the Vatican unveiled in St Peter's Square its Nativity Scene, or crib, that recreates the scene of Jesus' birth - a custom revived in 1982.

The Gospel story narrates how Jesus' mother, Mary, and foster father Joseph, unable to find lodging, seek a manger for shelter where Christ is then born.

Several of the statues used in the Nativity Scene, some of them larger-than-life-size, were created in 1842 by St Vincent Pallotti for a crib in the Sant'Andrea della Valle church in Rome.

The Nativity Scene stands next to the Vatican's Christmas tree - this year a 30-metre high spruce from the forests of the Ardennes in Wallonia, Belgium.

On Friday Benedict is scheduled to deliver his Christmas Day blessings and traditional 'to the city and the world,' Urbi et Orbi message.