Pope Hildebrand's 2025 Christmas Urbi et Orbi
To All the Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Ordinaries, religious Clergy and Catholic Laity in all the world
On the Vigils of the Lord’s Nativity 2025
To All the Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Ordinaries, religious Clergy and Catholic Laity in all the world
Oh Wonder of wonders! “For a child is born for us, and a son is given to us! And the principality has been placed upon his shoulders: and His Name shall be called, “Wonderful”, “Counselor,” “God”, “the Mighty” One, “Father of the world to come”, “Prince of Peace”. His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace: He shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it in judgment and in justice, from henceforth and for ever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.” 1
It was with these words that Saint Isaiah, the Prophet, foretold twenty-seven centuries ago, the Mystery, which we celebrate tonight: the Sacred Nativity of the Eternal Son of God from the immaculate womb of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. For as the Lord of Hosts Himself declared through the Prophet, “The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man” to save; “He was amazed that there was no one to intercede. So His own arm brought salvation“. 2
To speak in the words of Saint Augustine, “Now this Son of God, is the son of a woman. For, indeed, just as the Son of God, if He remained the Son of God and did not become the son of a man, would not have liberated the sons of men, so He Himself, Who made man, becomes what He has made, lest what He made perish. … Therefore, as such He came to us, as the Son of God, son now of a woman, as the One making and as one made; the Creator of His own mother, the created from a mother: … And all those who hear Him out they shall live. For just as the Father has life in His very Self so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself; not by participating, but in His very Self. 3
We celebrate tonight this Mystery, that the Eternal One has come in time, humbling Himself, as a vulnerable babe, to save us. And yet, He has come, not just for a time, but to remain with us, as He promised, after His Triumph over death, saying: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age.” 4 This promise of everlasting communion He makes only to those held in the arms of His Bride, Holy Mother Church, which He founded upon Peter, saying, “Upon this rock I will found My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against Her”. 5
For just as He Who is the Rock of the Ages, 6 shares His own Name with Simon bar Jonah, so He promises to and shares with His Immaculate Bride, founded upon him, His everlasting presence and company. This is the Faith of the Catholic Church. And this is in particular and most especially the Faith of the Roman Church, which has seen too often the hammer blows of God’s enemies 7 through these twenty centuries since our Lord and Savior, the only Messiah, Jesus Christ, ascended 8 as Man unto the heavenly glory of God His Father.
This promise of the Lord Jesus to the Roman Church has guaranteed an unbroken succession of legitimate successors of the Apostle and Fisherman, who trusting in the Lord against all hopes, had cast his nets into a lifeless sea, drawing in an immense catch. 9 And since He never forgets His own, though they waver, He has at last in our own days heard the cry of the poor, 10 and has come to the salvation of His servant, the new Israel, mindful of His promises to His Apostles and Disciples of old. 11
This unbroken succession is verified in each generation by a legitimate election of the Roman Pontiff according to the right bestowed upon the Church of Rome by the Apostle himself, whereby whomsoever valid candidate She legitimately elects to “the Apostolic Throne”, 12 receives, upon his free acceptance, the same munus and Keys over the whole Church, to rule, govern and sanctify, which Saint Peter the Apostle received from the Living God, our Savior, when He declared: 13 “Feed My sheep, feed My lambs”, 14 on the shores of the Lake of Galilee.
This right is exercised in accord with the Divinely sanctioned laws, promulgated by His Vicars in regard to the election of the Roman Pontiff. For not only is every such legitimate promulgation of law by the Successor of Saint Peter, sanctioned by the lips of the Omnipotent God, when He says, “Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in Heaven”, 15 but especially so when His Vicars from age to age promulgate and establish laws for the election of their successors. The entire history of the Roman Papacy testifies to this and the Catholic Church throughout all the earth gives witness, that only those eligible men, who are the first to be elected legitimately, are reckoned as Christ’s true vicars on Earth, and Roman Pontiffs.
In our own days, and indeed, from the earliest days of many, We have seen horrible and momentous attacks upon the Church which have nearly destroyed the sacred and holy character of every institution and ritual in Her communion. This movement of adaptation to the world, the flesh, and the synagogue of Satan, 16 which is the Masonic Lodge, 17 has culminated in the sacrilegious violation of imposing upon Christ’s Bride as Christ’s Vicar a man with no right to the office, on account of the objective discrepancy of how the recent Conclave was conducted at Rome, with the norms established by Pope John Paul II in Universi Dominici Gregis, nn. 4, 33, 68 and 76.
Indeed, it pertains to the perennial, authentic and infallible magisterium of the Church, that no vitiated election of a man as Roman Pontiff can be accepted by the Church as legitimate, according to the teaching of my predecessors, Pope Nicholas II, in his Bull, In Nomine Domini, n. 4, and Pope Paul IV, in his Apostolic Constitution, Cum ex apostolatus officio, n. 6, even when it appears to men that there is a universal acceptance of the criminal fraud of such a sacrilege.
For this reason, by Christ’s promise the Church at Rome is guaranteed an indefectibility in honesty, so that She might ever have among Her children those who are ready to shout from the rooftops and denounce all such detestable and intolerable transgressions, perpetrated by persons of whatsoever ecclesiastical dignity, grade, office or reputation. This grace is vouchsafed to Her in virtue of the law of grace spoken of in Proverbs and sanctioned by Saint Peter the Apostle in his First Letter: “God resists the proud, but to the humble He gives grace”. 18 – We see this in the most extraordinary and special manner in the heroic actions of Saint Hildebrand of Sovana, the future Gregroy VII, who upon his arrival at Rome in the spring of 1058, discovered that many of the Cardinal clergy, nobility and laity had transgressed the precept of the Lord Pope Stephen IX, Our predecessor of blessed memory, and had dared to presume to convoke an election and to install a dishonest usurper upon the sacred throne of the Apostle.
The validity of the election of Nicholas II, at the election which the Archdeacon Saint Hildebrand then convoked at Siena, in May of the same year, in the company of the Cardinal Bishops Saint Peter Damian and Umberto of Selva Candida, was founded upon this, that the Church at Rome as a juridical person of the first dignity, does Herself hold the right to elect the Prince of Apostle’s successor, in such wise, that the whole right can be exercised by any part of Herself. This principle of right, which was sanctioned in n. 3 of Pope Nicholas II’s subsequent bull, in the Roman Synod of April, 1059, at the Lateran Basilica is the juridical mechanism which guarantees the juridical continuity of the Roman Church as the self-same legitimate institution founded by Christ Jesus.
For these reasons, the Faithful of Rome, subjecting themselves to the example of the ancients 19 and humbling themselves under the mighty Hand of God, 20 this year of our Lord 2025, on the Feast of Christ the King, inspired by the humble servitude of the Most Holy Theotokos, who, with Her simple “Fiat”, 21 allowed the Infinite Mercy of God to be Incarnate in our flesh, acted and proceeded to the election of a legitimate successor of the Apostle, after having addressed more than 30,000 letters to the Cardinals, Clergy, and Religious at Rome, denouncing the sacrilegious Conclave and the fraud perpetrated therein, and after having discovered nearly universal pertinacity in crime and/or in the most shameful cowardliness dominating the land like a shadow, proceeded to elect a most unworthy and unlikely of men, not because of Our merits, but simply because there was no other valid canonical candidate, willing, who could be found after months of searching and pleading.
To carnal men, 22 the above reasons and facts will never persuade, just as to carnal men the birth of the Child of Bethlehem will always be scoffed at and spat upon. But for all of us who hold the Catholic Faith and who desire to remain in communion with Christ Jesus through His true Vicar, the Lord has worked, again, in our own days, a proof of His Infinite Condescension, a quasi miracle of faith, so that those little ones of His flock, who strive to enter through the narrow gate, 23 may have once again, after so many months of heretical and blasphemous horror, recourse to that necessary bond of charity and link of hierarchy, so as to return to and remain in juridical communion with Christ their Lord, their Shepherd and King, the sole, true supreme Pontiff of the Church.
We appeal then to the whole Flock of Christ, scattered through the world, to return to Catholic Unity and be not deceived by the professional liars of controlled media who want you to hold that this or that godless man is Christ’s vicar. Turn rather to the written laws of the true Roman Pontiffs who have left us sound and wise rules for determining these things, and if you wish to remain with Christ, obey them, humbling yourself as Saint Peter exhorted, under the rule of the ancients! 24
Wherefore, since We, with you, know well how all of us have been spiritually abused for so many years by those godless men, who have been set over us to shear and slaughter, 25 rather than pasture and feed, 26 We declare that it is Our most solemn intention and proposal to dedicate Our Pontificate to the reconciliation of the Catholic world, so that the Faithful everywhere might have their rights to true, sound, Catholic and Apostolic doctrine, Sacraments and sacramentals, protected and preserved, and so that all which is wicked, dishonest and tainted with the leaven of hypocrisy might be uprooted and cleansed from the dwellings and thresholds of Holy Mother Church.
For this reason, as a firebrand of God 27 lit to enkindle a conflagration of true charity and true mercy, We commit ourselves, first of all, to restore the Rule of Tradition in the Church which “comes from the Holy Spirit”, 28 and thus to receive into communion and ministry all the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Religious and Laity who, desire to keep the Eternal Faith and preserve the Sacramental continuity of the Church with Christ through the Apostles, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, Our predecessors in this Apostolic see; and second, to restore the Rule of Divine Faith, 29 by overturning all the errors and heresies which have gushed forth and exploded into Her sanctuaries since the death of Our predecessor of blessed memory, Pope Pius XII; and finally, third, to inaugurate a second Gregorian Reform, by rooting out from the clergy and religious institutes, all criminals, perverts and mongers of heretical depravity, so that as a true disciple of Christ and Saint Joseph, We might do everything necessary to make the Household of God again a safe, salvific and nurturing refuge for Catholic Families everywhere.
To this end, in the meantime, We beg and entrust ourselves to the prayers of all true Catholics and urge them to raise up the most fervent cries and pleas to God and His Holy Mother, the Theotokos, Our Corredemptrix and Mediatrix, “who suffered along with Him, no less and even more so”, 30 whose standard We have resolved to take up and bear proudly with Our own hands, unto the confusion and rout of all enemies of Her Divine Son. 31
This Our Eternal Savior is He Whom We pray and beg, to impart to each and everyone, this Holy Day of Christmas, His Blessing and the abundance of light and mercy, for the liberation of souls from sin and vice and for the repentance of all who have turned away from Him unto the godlessness of this age.
Be not afraid, therefore, but rejoice! Our God has come to save us!
Hildebrandus PP. Electus
Nativitas Domini 2025
Source: Urbi et Orbi — In Vigiliis Nativitatis Domini 2025 – Sedes Apostolica
Footnotes:
1 Clementine Vulgate: Sancti Isaias 9:6-7.
2 Ibid. 59: 15b & 16a.
3 Cf. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 127, VI, 9.
4 Gospel of Saint Matthew 28:20.
5 Gospel of Saint Matthew 16:18.
6 Cf. Deut. 32:4; 2 Sam. 22:2; 2 Kings 22:32; Psalm 18:31.
7 Cf. Pope Nicholas iI, In Nomine Domini, Foreword.
8 Cf. Gospel of Saint John 3:13.
9 Cf. Gospel of Saint Luke 5:4-8.
10 Cf. King Saint David, Psalm 9:13.
11 Cf. The Holy Theotokos, in the Gospel of St. Luke 1:54-55.
12 Cf. Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Hist. Arian, ad Monach. n. 35.
13 Gospel of Saint John 21:17.
14 Cf. Bl. Pius IX, Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 1; cf. Inscription in the Mosaic of the Nave, Basilica of Saint Peter, Bethsaida (El-Araj); cf. Patriarch Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem, Letter to Pope Martin I at the Lateran Council, Mansi, X, 893; cf. Patriarch Elogius of Alexandria, Book II, Contra Novatian apud Photium Bibloth. Codex 280; cf. Patriarch Photius, Council of Constantinople in 879 A. D., Mansi, 396D; cf. St. Methodius of Thessalonika, “Methodius”, N. Brianchaninov, The Russian Church (1931), 46.
15 Gospel of Saint Matthew 18:18.
16 Saint John the Apostle, Apocalyse 2:9.
17 Pope Bl. Pius IX, Etsi Multa, 21 Nov. 1873, n. 28.
18 Proverbs 3:34; 1 Peter 5:5.
19 Cf. Saint Peter the Apostle, 1 Peter 5:5.
20 Cf. Saint Peter the Apostle, 1 Petr. 5:6.
21 Gospel of Saint Luke 1:38.
22 Cf. Saint Peter the Apostle, , 2 Peter 2:13 ff..
23 Cf. Gospel of Saint Luke 13:24.
24 Cf. Saint Peter the Apostle, 1 Peter 5.
25 Cf. Prophet Saint Isaias 53:7.
26 Cf. Gospel of Saint John 21:15 ff..
27 Cf. Saint Zacharias 12:6.
28 Cf. Second Ecumenical Council of Niceae, 787 A. D., Definition.
29 Cf. Saint Irenaeus of Antioch, Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching, n. 6.
30 Cf. John Geometres, “Life of the Virgin”, n. 80 (M. Constas & C. Simelidis trans., Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA, 2023): Equal because in an exactly similar immaculate humanity, but greater because not only under the shadow of Divine Providence but in the obscurity of faith.
31 Cf. Saint Paul the Apostle, 1 Cor 15:25.