Pope Francis ushered in 2025 with a New Year's Day Mass at St. Peter's Basilica, braving untypically cold weather in Rome, with a renewed appeal for followers to reject abortion.

The Pope's address called on Catholics to reject abortion urging a "firm commitment" to protect and respect life "from conception to natural death," DPA reported.

Francis prayed in his homily that everyone should learn to care for "every child born of a woman."

He called on followers to protect "the precious gift of life: life in the womb, the lives of children, the lives of the suffering, the poor, the elderly, the lonely and the dying."

"I ask for a firm commitment to respect the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person may cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to the future," said Francis.

The Catholic Church strongly opposes abortion and assisted suicide.

According to DPA, the German news agency said that in the first months of his pontificate in 2013, Francis complained that the church had become obsessed with "small-minded rules" on issues such as abortion.

However, the Pope now regularly likens the procuring of an abortion to "hiring a hitman to solve a problem."

In September, he courted controversy on a visit to Belgium by describing the country's abortion law as "murderous."

At his New Year mass, Pope Francis was accompanied by 36 cardinals, 22 bishops, 40 priests and thousands of visitors in the basilica prayed vespers and then sang the "Te Deum" ("We praise you, oh God") in thanksgiving for the blessings of the past year.

In his homily during the prayer service, Francis said that striving for human fraternity is not just a "rhetorical slogan" but is rooted in the person of Jesus Christ, OSV, a Catholic news portal reported.

Despite extraordinary cold gripping Rome, Francis visited the Vatican Nativity scene in St. Peter's Square after the service, seated in a wheelchair.

He greeted the faithful and handed chocolates to children, while the Swiss Guard band played Christmas carols to serenade the crowd.