VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican will display an explicitly pro-life nativity scene for the first time in its history next week, which will also be blessed by Pope Leo XIV during a ceremony.

The nativity scene entitled, “Nacimiento Gaudium,” (Joyful Birth), which was designed by Costa Rican sacred artist Paula Senoto with the help of 40 Days for Life, will be placed in the Paul VI Audience Hall and blessed by Pope Leo during a December 15 ceremony, where it will remain on display through the Christmas season and for the closing of the Jubilee Year of Hope.

The nativity, which combines Byzantine iconography with Franciscan figurines, will feature over 25,000 ribbons in place of the traditional straw, each representing one of the babies saved through the prayers and witness of 40 Days for Life. Senoto’s display will also feature a pregnant Blessed Virgin Mary figure until Christmas Day, when it will be replaced with a regular statue of Our Lady adoring the Baby Jesus to remind the world that Our Lord was here as a child.

“This (nativity scene) has to be something that the whole world knows about. And I asked myself, ‘What place will this cry of babies to the world be heard the most? Well, the Vatican,’” Senoto recalled during an interview with 40 Days for Life (viewable in the original Spanish below). “This is the biggest pro-life rallying cry that will ever be heard from the Vatican.”

Senoto’s pro-life nativity was initially approved by Pope Francis’ Vatican to be displayed in 2027, but was moved up to 2025 by Pope Leo’s Vatican just a few months ago. The nativity will also be the first to be blessed by Pope Leo during his pontificate.

Senoto believes God unexpectedly accelerated the timeline for the nativity display because of acts of violence against pro-life advocates, as well as the increasing number of Catholics who have defended abortion – the murder of unborn children – over the past year.

READ: South Carolina man arrested after threatening pro-lifers with deactivated grenade outside church

“This year, several events have occurred, a lot of violence… the deaths of certain people who have defended life,” she said.

Here, Senoto appears to be referring to the assassination of conservative influencer and staunch pro-life advocate Charlie Kirk.

“I have seen that many Catholics… have appeared in videos where they defend abortion,” she added. “So, I feel that (the pro-life message) is something that needs to be communicated very clearly, and we need to pray a lot and get down on our knees.”

“Of course, we have years in this fight… and thank God abortion clinics have been closed, many lives have been saved,” she added. “But I feel that especially this year (with all the violence) something moved God’s heart and He said: ‘This has to be done now.’”

The “Nacimiento Gaudium” nativity will be a major contrast to recent Vatican nativity displays, some of which have been blasphemous.

In 2017, the Vatican’s “Nativity of Mercy” featured a naked man and a corpse. The creche was graphic enough for a photo of it to be rejected by Facebook for being “sexually provocative.”

READ: Multiple churches set up blasphemous Nativity scenes pushing anti-ICE propaganda

Another modernist Vatican nativity display in 2020 depicted figures that looked like astronauts or were altogether unrecognizable. The set was ridiculed by non-Catholics and dismayed many of the faithful. At the time, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò protested that the display was an “arrogant imposition of blasphemy and sacrilege as an anti-theophany of ugliness, the necessary attribute of the Evil One.”