Archbishop calls for hope despite attacks

Sydney's most senior Catholic has encouraged people not to bow down to terror but to keep hopeful this Christmas despite recent terror attacks.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher made hope the primary focus of his Christmas message on Friday, referring to the horrors witnessed in Germany and Turkey this week, and to recent terror attacks generally.

"As we witnessed terrorist incidents in so many countries this year, for example, or the persecution of Christians and others in the Middle East and elsewhere, we might be tempted to think that the horrors of this world will never end," the Archbishop said.

"In celebrating the Christmas story we are celebrating the hope that story brings, for peace in this world, and eternal peace in the next. Because of this, every year we look the sorrows of the world in the eye, and we say 'I will not bow'."

Earlier in the week, the world was rocked after an Islamic State terrorist ploughed a truck into a crowd in a busy market in Berlin, killing 12 people, and a gunman fatally shot Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov in Turkey.

The Archbishop's words come off the back of the spike in terrorist attacks in recent years.

"At this time we recall the greatest gift ever given, the hope of eternal life, available for all to see in the form of a newborn babe, lying in a manger," he said.