Pope Francis yesterday used his New Year's message to issue a clarion call for an end to violence against women, saying it was insulting to God.

Francis, 85, wove his New Year's homily around the themes of motherhood and women - saying it was they who kept together the threads of life - and used it to make one of his strongest calls yet for an end to violence against them.

"And since mothers bestow life, and women keep the world (together), let us all make greater efforts to promote mothers and to protect women," Francis said.

"How much violence is directed against women! Enough! To hurt a woman is to insult God, who from a woman took on our humanity - not through an angel, not directly, but through a woman," he said, in a reference to Jesus's mother Mary.