Injustices to women and children? We don't dare to hope this could be a reference to the injustices inflicted by the church itself upon Catholic women, who have been second-class citizens within the church since time out of mind. As for children, perhaps it's time the church paid a little LESS attention to those. It will be a very long time before the world has recovered from what Christopher Hitchens described as the "No child's behind left" policies and practices of all too recent memory.

The pope said he "hoped Christmas would bring consolation to 'those who are still denied their legitimate aspirations for a more secure existence, for health, education, stable employment, for fuller participation in civil and political responsibilities, free from oppression and protected from conditions that offend human dignity'." He did not mention how that would occur in places where so many offenses to human dignity have come about as the direct result of centuries of the loving ministrations of the church itself. 

The pope expressed his desire that the birth of Jesus "would bring consolation to all people 'who live in the darkness of poverty, injustice and war'," presumably not the same poverty, injustice and war that are the direct result of the church's teachings regarding contraception and abortion, not to mention the institutional misery resulting from prohibition of divorce. 

This guy has no idea how his words play in Peoria. He really needs an image consultant.