Italian bishop gives children harsh news: There is no Santa Claus

ROME (NYTIMES) - All that separated the giddy Sicilian school children from meeting Old St Nick - arriving on horseback with his long white beard, crimson robe and bag full of gifts - was a Christmas message from the bishop of Noto.

"Santa Claus," thundered Bishop Antonio Stagliano, "is an imaginary character."

Children's jaws dropped and the holiday wool fell from their eyes as, for many long minutes in the Santissimo Salvatore Basilica, the bishop continued to stick it to Santa, who he said had no interest in families strapped for cash.

"The red colour of his coat was chosen by Coca-Cola for advertising purposes," the bishop said. Big soda, he added, "uses the image to depict itself as an emblem of healthy values".

The bishop's broadside against Babbo Natale, as Father Christmas is called here, constituted only the latest installment in what has become a new Italian holiday tradition. Just about every year, Roman Catholic clerics insist that for Italians to keep Christ in Christmas, Santa must be kept out of it.

In 2019, a priest in the northern town of Magliano Alpi told children that there was no man dressed in red who "magically" delivered gifts. In 2018, in the Sardinian city of Quartu Sant'Elena, another priest drew tears by revealing that Santa Claus was in fact none other than their mums and dads.

This year's episode, on Dec 6, the feast day of St Nicholas, was especially brazen, said Ms Giuliana Scarnato, one of the teachers accompanying the children, none older than nine, on a school trip to the church in Noto.

She said that when one of the children protested, telling the bishop that her parents had assured her Santa was real, the cleric responded that the child should tell her parents "you tell lies".

The bishop said he remembered putting it more tactfully and insisted he simply explained that the roots for Santa lay in the historical personage of St Nicholas, a charitable fourth century bishop of Myra, in modern-day Turkey, who, tradition holds, looked after the poor.

He had strong feelings on the matter.

"Is Father Christmas everyone's father, or just some?" he said, poking holes in the case for Santa Claus. "In the lockdown, Father Christmas didn't visit the families that he used to. Why? It's definitely not for fear of the coronavirus."

This year, nationalists opened a new front in Italy's fight over the shape of Christmas. Desperate for an issue with popular appeal in a period of political stability, they have picked up on the American right's claim to be opposing a war on Christmas.

For them, the main target has been not Santa Claus but the European Union.

In November, a conservative Italian newspaper discovered that an EU commissioner's office had drafted guidelines for internal correspondence, calling for more inclusive, gender-neutral and less holiday-specific language.

"Not everyone celebrates the Christian holidays and not all Christians celebrate them on the same dates," read the document, which advised staff to avoid phrases like "Christmastime can be stressful". Better, it suggested, would be "Holiday times can be stressful".

Even Pope Francis - who has suggested that nationalist leaders are un-Christian for their opposition to migrants - has echoed them when it comes to canceling Christmas.

Asked about the EU document earlier this month, Francis said: "This is an anachronism" and accused the bloc of following in the footsteps of totalitarians. "In history many, many dictatorships have tried" to undercut the church, he said. "Think of Napoleon. From there, think of the Nazi dictatorship, the communist one."

But Francis has not rallied to defend Santa from his own bishop's remarks and the Vatican has not returned a request for comment.

Attempting to contain the fallout, a diocese spokesperson, Don Alessandro Paolino, wrote on the diocesan Facebook page, "on behalf of the bishop, I express my sorrow for this declaration which has created disappointment in the little ones and want to specify that Monsignor Stagliano's intentions were quite different."

Stagliano said that he was not against all gift-giving but that it had to be a considerate present, well selected and given by hand.

Despite the fervor of his anti-Santa salvo, it was ultimately no match for the sight of Old St Nick on horseback outside the church. The children clamored around him as he dismounted, took a seat on a red throne and handed out pencils, candy and other gifts, said Ms Scarnato, the teacher.

"Once they were outside the church the speech wore off because they were smitten with St Nicholas," she said. "They were happy."