The new Pope making it impossible not to love him.

During today’s Christmas message the Pope said nonbelievers were welcome to join him in his quest for peace. “It’s a big tent” is the same thing the priest used to say to me late at night on those camping trips. Anyway Reuters reports…

“I invite even non-believers to desire peace. (Join us) with your desire, a desire that widens the heart. Let us all unite, either with prayer or with desire, but everyone, for peace,” he said, drawing sustained applause from the crowd.

Francis’s reaching out to atheists and people of other religions is a marked contrast to the attitude of former Pope Benedict, who sometimes left non-Catholics feeling that he saw them as second-class believers.

Original Link: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/12/25/world/europe/25reuters-pope-christmas.html?partner=rss&emc=rss