Blogs For Victory

One does wonder what really motivates these people:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains how the anti-Christmas agenda has changed:

“There was no anti-Christmas agenda until the 1980s, and at that time it was led by the ACLU. The strategy of choice was to ban the display of religious symbols, especially the crèche, on public property. This legal strategy, which worked relatively well, has been superseded by a cultural strategy. The goal now is to dilute the significance of Christmas via contrived competition. To wit: every religious, racial and ethnic heritage—including invented ones like Kwanzaa—is now celebrated in December.

“It is important to note that the agenda is not a positive one; it is not designed to honor world traditions. No, the agenda is negative—it is designed to combat Christmas. Here’s a splendid example.

“Margaret Downey, founder of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, sued Chester County in 2001 because a large Ten Commandments plaque was displayed at the Chester County Courthouse. After winding its way through the courts, Downey lost. Chester County, however, decided that the courthouse lawn should be open to all seasonal displays. The crèche and menorah were quickly displayed and now the lawn is adorned with Downey’s ‘Godless Holiday Tree’; it is decorated with the book covers of atheist tracts.

On some show or other I heard an atheist state that they are trying to reclaim Christmas from we Christians who usurped it – as if we would hold a celebration at this time just to annoy atheists of 2,000 years ago, supposing any such really existed back then. In actuality, of course, Christmas is held on December 25th due to various calculations of time designed to fit the story of salvation in to one calendar year. No one was trying to hijack a pagan holiday – its just that December 25th is approximately 9 months after Christians celebrate the Annunciation when the Word was made flesh in the womb of Mary. And the Annunciation, in turn, is observed in its turn due to calculations on the birth of John the Baptist, who was a little older than Jesus and who first came into contact with Our Lord on the Visitation. And so on and on. If you’re terribly interested in the whole Liturgical Year, go here.

There are approximately two billion Christians of various denominations in the world, with half of them being Catholic of various rites. In other words, one in three human beings believes in some measure that on Christmas day the only begotten Son of God was born to the Virgin Mary. As far as human activities go, this is as close to a universal thing as you can get. It is a tremendously important holy day – and the celebrations around it are entirely Christian. Were it not for Jesus and the Church he founded, December 25th would be just a day of the year. The basic desire of Christians is to celebrate this overwhelmingly important event in public and private – to which celebrations all are invited, but which must remain Christian because it is a Christian event. To try and de-Christianize it would be akin to trying to de-Americanize the Fourth of July – you might be able to do it, but what would be the point of observing it, once you had done so?

Its time for pernicious atheists and other busy bodies to keep their hands off Christmas – its none of anyone’s business what we do in our celebrations and, additionally, as we make up the very large majority of the population we’ll take no back chat about using the public square we largely pay for to celebrate our great holy day. If you don’t like Christmas being celebrated by Christians, then I suggest moving to a country with a smaller Christian tradition.

If you believe, then this is the second most important day of the year (the first would be Easter); if you don’t believe, then kindly observe your Christian brothers and sisters and join in any part of the celebration which tickles your fancy – but lay off absurd attempts to take Christ out of Christmas, or to exile Christians from their own public square.