The only thing that stopped the cheerful pupils of a Sicilian school from getting to know Saint Nicolas – who would arrive on horseback, with his long white beard, red robes and sack full of presents – was a Christmas message transmitted by the Bishop of Noto. “Santa Claus is an imaginary character,” thundered Bishop Antonio Stagliano.
The children were disillusioned and jaw dropping. For many long minutes in the Basilica Santissimo Salvatore, the bishop continued to speak ill of Santa Claus, who, he said, doesn’t care about families in dire financial straits.
“The red color of his clothing was chosen by Coca-Cola for advertising purposes,” the bishop said. According to him, the large soft drink company “uses the image of Santa Claus to project itself as a symbol of healthy values”.
The bishop’s attack on Babbo Natale, as Santa Claus is known in Italy, was just the latest episode in something that has become a new Christmas tradition in the country. Virtually every year, Catholic clerics insist that Santa Claus must be distanced from Christmas so that Italians can continue to link the feast to Jesus Christ.
In 2019, a priest in the northern city of Magliano Alpi told the children that there is no man in red clothes who delivers gifts “as if by magic”. In 2018, in Quartu Sant’Elena, Sardinia, another priest drew tears from children when he revealed that “Santa Claus” was actually their fathers and mothers.
This year’s episode took place on December 6, St. Nicholas Day, and was especially explicit, according to Giuliana Scarnato, one of the teachers who accompanied the children, none of whom were older than 9, on a school trip to the church in Noto.
She said the bishop “could have left Santa Claus out” of his speech, but instead insisted that Santa Claus “is a fantasy, that he never existed.” When one of the children protested, telling the bishop that her parents had assured her that Santa Claus was real, the cleric replied that the girl should tell her parents, “You tell lies.”
Stagliano said he expressed himself with more tact, insisting that he only explained that the origin of Santa Claus – whom he portrayed as the harmful product of the soft drink industry’s consumer complex – lies in a historical character, São Nicolau. Tradition has it that Bishop of Mira, in present-day Turkey, in the 4th century, had a charitable spirit and helped the poor.
Bishop Stagliano expressed strong views on the matter. “Is Santa Claus the father of all or just a few?” he asked, pointing out flaws in the arguments in favor of Santa Claus. “During the lockdown, Santa Claus didn’t visit the families he used to visit before. Why? It certainly wasn’t out of fear of the coronavirus.”
He recalled wistfully the time when Italian children addressed their wish lists to baby Jesus, “not Santa Claus, reindeer, let’s go to the movies, let’s go bowling and all that American bullshit.”
This year, nationalists have opened a new front in Italian disagreements over Christmas. Crazy to identify an issue that would engage public attention in a time of political stability, they clung to the American right’s claim that it opposes the Christmas war.
For nationalists, the main target is not Santa Claus, but the European Union.
A conservative Italian newspaper discovered in November that an EU commissioner’s office had drawn up guidelines for international correspondence. The proposed new rules called for a more inclusive, gender-neutral language to be used that contains fewer explicit references to Christmas.
“Not everyone celebrates Christian holidays, and not all Christians celebrate them on the same dates,” says the document, which advised officials to avoid phrases like “Christmas can be stressful.” It would be better, the text suggests, to say that “the holiday season can be stressful”.
The stress was immediate. Right-wing leaders did not hesitate to respond in kind. Nationalist leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini posted on social media an image of a decapitated statue of the Virgin Mary thrown into a ditch.
Salvini, who is not particularly religious but often characterizes himself as an advocate of Christianity, wrote on Facebook: “The European Commission is asking us not to celebrate Holy Christmas so as not to offend others, and some imbecile does these grotesque things.”
Another right-wing nationalist politician, Giorgia Meloni, told the conservative newspaper Libero that the EU guidelines were “shameful”. “No one can be offended by a child who was born in a manger,” she added.
Even Pope Francis, who has already suggested that nationalist leaders are less than Christian because they deal with the arrival of migrants, echoed them when it came to canceling Christmas.
Asked this month about the EU document, the pope said it was “an anachronism” and accused the bloc of following in the wake of totalitarian leaders. “Many dictatorships in history have tried to reduce the Church’s influence,” he said. “Think of Napoleon, then think of the Nazi dictatorship, the communist dictatorship.”
But Francis did not move to defend Santa Claus against his bishop’s claims, and the Vatican did not respond to a request for comment.
Stagliano argued that he is fully aligned with the pope. “With all due respect,” he said. “Santa Claus only takes presents to those who have money”, whether the children are naughty or well behaved.
The bishop said the poor families and migrants he visits every year at Christmas “have never seen Santa Claus.” So he urged the children in the church to ask Santa Claus for even more gifts, and if he did show up, explain to him that they could now give the gifts to poor children, “since you never go to their homes.”
Stagliano said none of the mothers in the church dared to contradict him and that some of the children, encouraged by his preaching, spoke as if they had had a revelation. One of the children reportedly declared: “I always knew that Santa Claus was my father”.
Breaking the Christmas “spell” is a step forward, the bishop said, noting that when he was little, he wrote letters to Santa Claus asking for money and placed them under his father’s plate at the dinner table. And then he found under his pillow an envelope with a few thousand old Italian lire.
But at the age of 4 he already knew that it was his father who had given him the money. And he argued that the 7-year-olds sitting in the church were also aware of reality. The 62-year-old bishop said he had not destroyed any Christmas illusions. “If we already knew,” he said, alluding to his generation, “imagine these kids today, with their smartphones.”
According to tradition, St. Nicolas was kind to children and gave gold coins to three poor sisters who would otherwise have had to prostitute themselves. Over the centuries he has become the patron saint of many causes, including children, pawnshop owners and Russia. Even today, many Russians travel to the city of Bari, in southern Italy, where the relics of St. Nicholas, stolen by sailors centuries ago, are preserved in the San Nicola basilica.
The tradition of St. Nicholas also spread to the north, where the Dutch know it as Sinterklaas, a variant of St. Nicholas. The Dutch founded New Amsterdam, which would later be named New York, and the English inhabitants of the American colonies Anglicized the saint’s name to Santa Claus.
Reindeer, sleigh, Christmas Eve gift delivery and Santa’s big belly were 19th-century additions, as was the red coat, which was Santa Claus’s traditional attire long before Coca-Cola get involved in the story.
But as soon as Santa Claus started promoting soft drinks, it all went down the drain, Stagliano told children at church.
In an effort to contain the repercussions of the bishop’s speech, a spokesman for the diocese, Monsignor Alessandro Paolino, wrote on the church’s Facebook page: “On behalf of the bishop, I express my regret for this statement that caused disappointment in the children and I want to leave of course Monsignor Stagliano’s intention was not that”.
He then picked up the thread of the skein where the bishop had left off, criticizing “Santa Claus as consumerism, the desire to own, to buy, buy, and buy again.”
Stagliano said he’s not entirely against the idea of giving gifts, but that they need to be carefully thought out, well-chosen gifts — not “Amazon-delivered” — and delivered in person.
Despite the fervor of his speech against Santa Claus, his words turned out to be no match for the vision of St. Nicholas on horseback outside the church. The children surrounded him as he got off his horse, sat on a red throne and distributed pencils, candy and other gifts, said teacher Giulia Scarnato.
“When they left the church, the bishop’s speech no longer had the same impact, because they were fascinated by St. Nicholas,” she said. “They were happy.”
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