Howard Sutherland writes

Those of us who are Papists hoping for a traditional revival within the Church of Rome get reminders more often than we would like of how far Catholicism has fallen. Here is yet another: Christmas war erupts in unlikely place A group froma Catholic school went to a Florida hospital to give patients Christmas presents. The hospital forbade anything that actually says “Merry Christmas” or is “Jesus-themed.” Unfortunately, no longer surprising in degraded Post-America. Except that the hospital in question is St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, [email them]founded and apparently run by Franciscan nuns! Here is the lame excuse from the hospital’s “vice president of missions”:

“Yes, we were founded by Catholic sisters, but we serve everybody in our community,” said Sister Pat Shirley, a Franciscan sister and the hospital’s vice president of missions. “We have to create an environment in which all feel comfortable whether it be Christmas or Hanukkah or Gasparilla or any circumstance.”

What is Sr. Shirley a missionary for, exactly? And what on Earth is “Gasparilla”? Anything to do with sarsaparilla?

God Help Us All… And Merry Christmas!

I’d never heard of Gasparilla either; it turns out it’s a local Mardi Gras-like “Pirate Festival” which has been going on in Tampa since 1904. It’s ridiculous to compare it to Christmas, especially since it involves some of the same “Girls Gone Wild” activity that Mardi Gras does.

It’s also strange that they should have to ask for parental consent to Christmas presents when you consider that hospitals ask your religion when you check in. It’s on your chart, specifically so they know what kind of pastoral care you need.

In the meantime, John Zmirak forwarded this story, pointing out that some Catholics are noticing the War On Christmas–in Rome.

Wary of the War on Christmas

L’Osservatore Romano Weighs In on a Trend

In an article last Sunday in L’Osservatore Romano, journalist Mario Gabriele Giordano noted the widespread attacks on the Christian holiday. It noted that some retail stores no longer sell Nativity figurines.

“A misunderstood sense of modernity has trampled on sentiments and values,” the article stated. It observed that “the old and loved wishes for a ‘Merry Christmas’ … are being dissolved into a generic ‘Happy Holidays.’”

England in particular is witnessing a veritable “war on Christmas,” the article said, citing a report in the British newspaper Sun. “It is a war that tends to do away with all Christmas traditions, not only through hypocritical reasons of contingent opportunity but also through formal and rigid prohibitions.”

The L’Osservatore Romano article expressed perplexity over the disappearance of religious Christmas stamps issued by post offices. Such stamps now depict snowmen and reindeer, for instance. Gone are the magi and the star over Bethlehem.

Some people say this “war” is justified because of “the need not to offend the sensitivity of believers or followers of other religions, as if nonbelievers and followers of other religions appeared suddenly only this Christmas,” noted L’Osservatore Romano.

Absurdity

The newspaper quoted Britain’s Daily Express paper which stressed “the absurdity of wanting to do away with our most cherished traditions because of unfounded and irrational fears.”

For its part, the Italian bishops’ newspaper, Avvenire, in an article Dec. 17 by Carlo Cardia, entitled “An Impossible Eclipse: In the Symbols of Christmas Is the Universe,” stated that such symbols “have spanned the centuries.”

“When they appear every year in so many parts of the world, including non-Christian areas, a message is spread, addressed to families, to mothers and fathers, to boys and girls,” the article stated. “And this message speaks of hope, hope for the future and the reality of goodness, of confidence in oneself and in others.”

Froma Harrop has been writing effective columns on immigration for some time. We linked to one almost 7 years ago, written shortly after she began writing a column. But the latest, Illegal Immigration: A Rich American’s Game – (Real Clear Politcs December 21 2006 ) is superlative:

Illegal immigration is usually presented as a win-win situation: Undocumented foreigners earn far more than they could back home. Consumers get a bargain.

Nowhere to be seen are America’s working poor who get stomped on 13 different ways.

I say this partly because of her unusual targets:

Who doesn’t suffer from illegal immigration? For starters, the people who write about it. I speak of the journalism profession, which has the habit of covering the issue by anecdotes. Reporters thrive on sympathetic stories about illegal immigrants who work hard and go to church.

But, were a busload of illegals from Australia to turn up at their newspaper and offer reportage at 10 percent below the going rate, the writers would call the authorities so fast that your head would spin…

No vocation keeps a tighter lid on immigration than the medical profession. “If we let in 100,000 immigrant doctors,” Richard Freeman, another Harvard economist, recently told a group of journalists, “everyone in this room would benefit.” Except the American doctors.

Harrop is usually seen as a Democrat. She grasps what an intelligent stance on immigration could do for the Democrats. In her September 12 2006 column The Democrats Can Win on Immigration (Real Clear Politics) she pointed out that the (ultimately successful) Democratic challenger in the Missouri Senate race actually had a more plausible restrictionist stance than the Republican. And she knew why:

It’s the Democrats’ good fortune that they don’t have a cheap-labor wing of their party. The Wall Street Journal reports that Republicans in big business, including the construction industry, are threatening to withhold contributions to candidates who seem earnest about cutting off the supply of illegal workers…even though the issue is a top public concern, Republican strategists have put it on the back burner until after the Nov. 7 election. Once the voters are off their backs, they can resume providing business interests with their cheap-labor fix.

Quite possibly, Froma Harrop’s optimism about the Democrats will prove misplaced. The fact is, the immigration issue has the potential to shatter the American Party system. She may find herself with surprising allies in a few years time.

Applaud Froma Harrop.