Pope Leo XIV will mark his first Christmas at the Vatican by reviving the tradition of celebrating Christmas Day Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on Dec. 25, a practice no Pope has observed since 1994.
The service will begin Thursday, Dec. 25, at 10 a.m. ET and air globally via Vatican News.
Popes have typically still given the Urbi et Orbi blessing at noon on Christmas Day, but they have not celebrated a formal Christmas Day Mass inside the basilica on Dec. 25 until now.
St. John Paul II last celebrated Christmas Day Mass in St. Peter's Basilica in 1994.
Pope Leo urged Vatican cardinals on Monday to put their ambitions of power and personal interests aside, as he followed in Pope Francis' footsteps and used a Christmas greeting to gently criticize his closest collaborators.
"Is it possible to be friends in the Roman Curia?" Leo asked the cardinals and bishops who make up the Curia, as the Holy See bureaucracy is known. "To have relationships of genuine fraternal friendship?"
Leo didn't repeat Francis' more biting critique — that Vatican clergy sometimes suffer from "spiritual Alzheimer's," the "cancer" of cliques, the "corruption" of ambition, and "self-absorbed" idle gossip — and his tone was far more gentle and constructive.
But the underlying message remained. Leo, who was very close to Francis and worked in the Vatican for two years before his election, didn't shy away from Francis' tradition of using the Christmas occasion to urge Vatican bureaucrats to examine their consciences and change their ways for the good of the church.
"At times this bitterness finds its way among us as well, when, after many years of service in the Curia, we observe with disappointment that certain dynamics — linked to the exercise of power, the desire to prevail, or the pursuit of personal interests — are slow to change," Leo said.
"Amid daily toil, it is a grace to find trustworthy friends, where masks fall away, no one is used or sidelined, genuine support is offered, and each person's worth and competence are respected, preventing resentment and dissatisfaction."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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