Pope condemns human ‘hunger for wealth and power’

Pope Francis has condemned human "hunger for wealth and power" at Christmas Eve Mass in the Vatican, seemingly referring to the war in Ukraine and other conflicts.

"How many wars have we seen!" he said, adding that the main victims were "the weak and the vulnerable."

"I think above all of the children devoured by war, poverty and injustice," the pontiff said while addressing worshippers at St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, reports BBC.

Francis, 86, entered the church in a wheelchair and sat at the site of the altar for most of the Mass on Saturday evening.

"While animals feed in their stalls, men and women in our world, in their hunger for wealth and power, consume even their neighbours, their mothers and sisters," he said.

He did not specifically mention the Russian-Ukraine war during the service.

During the early stages of Russia's full-scale invasion launched on February 24, the Argentine pontiff was widely criticised in Ukraine for making what many Ukrainians saw as cautious comments, without blaming Russia directly.

In June, he suggested that the war was "somehow either provoked or not prevented."

But the Pope later denounced what he described as atrocities committed by Russian troops.