LONDON: Britain’s King Charles III called for “compassion and reconciliation” at a time of “division” across the world in his Christmas Day message Thursday.
The 77-year-old monarch said he found it “enormously encouraging” how people of different faiths had a “shared longing for peace.”
Charles praised individuals who risked their lives to save others in situations of violence, including those caught up in the killings at a Jewish event at Bondi Beach in Australia this month.
“Individuals and communities have displayed spontaneous bravery, instinctively placing themselves in harm’s way to defend others,” said the king whose words were accompanied by images of events at Bondi.
Eighty years after the end of World War II, the king said the courage of servicemen and women and the way communities came together after the conflict carried “a timeless message for us all.”
“These are the values which have shaped our country,” he said.
“As we hear of division both at home and abroad, they are the values of which we must never lose sight,” Charles said in a message recorded at Westminster Abbey and broadcast nationally.
No mention of royal tribulations
“With the great diversity of our communities, we can find the strength to ensure that right triumphs over wrong. It seems to me that we need to cherish the values of compassion and reconciliation the way our Lord lived and died.”
In October, Charles became the first head of the Church of England to pray publicly with a pope since a schism with Rome 500 years ago, in a service led by Leo XIV at the Vatican. He called it a “historic moment of spiritual unity.”
A few days earlier Charles met survivors of a deadly attack on a synagogue and members of the Jewish community in the northern English city of Manchester.
This is the second year running that the king has made his festive address away from a royal residence.
Last year he spoke from a former hospital chapel as he thanked medical staff for supporting the royal family in a year in which he announced his cancer diagnosis.
This year, Charles did not make any reference to his battle with the illness, nor did he mention his younger brother Andrew who in October was stripped of his royal titles over his links to convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The message did feature images of his son and heir Prince William, as well as his grandson George.
The Christmas song that ended the message was sung by a Ukrainian choir formed after Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country.
The king and other members of the royal family, including Andrew’s daughters, attended a Christmas service at St. Mary Magdalene Church on Charles’s private Sandringham estate in Norfolk.
King Charles calls for ‘reconciliation’ in Christmas speech
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King Charles calls for ‘reconciliation’ in Christmas speech
- “Individuals and communities have displayed spontaneous bravery, instinctively placing themselves in harm’s way to defend others,” king said about Bondi Beach attack
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
