'Defense of immigrants'

Mary and Joseph, he said, were immigrants, who struggled to find a safe place to stay in Bethlehem.

"They had to leave their people, their home and their land," Francis told an audience at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. "This was no comfortable or easy journey for a young couple about to have a child. ... At heart, they were full of hope and expectation because of the child about to be born; yet their steps were weighed down by the uncertainties and dangers that attend those who have to leave their home behind."

'New social imagination'

"So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary," Francis said Sunday.

"We see the tracks of entire families forced to set out in our own day. We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away, but driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones."

Rather than react to migration and those seeking refuge with hostility, Francis said, people should work to create a "new social imagination ... in which none have to feel that there is no room for them on this earth."

While some far-right parties in Europe have made Christian identity part of their platforms, often in opposition to Muslim immigrants or refugees, Francis said respect for migration is an integral part of Christianity, as the faithful's "document of citizenship" comes from God, not any specific country.

"True power and authentic freedom are shown in honoring and assisting the weak and the frail," he said.

"This is the joy that we tonight are called to share, to celebrate and to proclaim. The joy with which God, in his infinite mercy, has embraced us pagans, sinners and foreigners, and demands that we do the same."

Papal politicking

The Vatican defended that decision on the grounds that using the term would be needlessly divisive while Francis was in Myanmar to improve diplomatic relations with the predominantly Buddhist country.

He used his speech on Christmas Day to urge the world to "protect minority groups" in Myanmar but did not use the word "Rohingya."

"I see Jesus again in the children I met during my recent visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh, and it is my hope that the international community will not cease to work to ensure that the dignity of the minority groups present in the region is adequately protected," the Pope said.