Pope Francis pushed back against the European Commission’s internal guidelines, which have drawn fire for trying to “cancel Christmas,” likening these efforts to dictatorships [1] as he warned against “ideological colonisation.”
Internal communications of the European Commission were leaked last week whereby a 30-page document, titled “Union of Equality,” advised members of the Commission avoid using the word “Christmas” in favour of “holidays.”
The document is “anachronistic,” Pope Francis said yesterday during a press conference aboard the papal flight returning from his four-day apostolic visit to Cyprus and Greece. “Throughout history many, many dictatorships tried to do it,” he added.
“Think of Napoleon: from there… Think of the Nazi dictatorship, the communist one [2]… it is a fashion of a watered-down secularism, distilled water… But this is something that throughout [history] hasn’t worked”.
Francis also said the European Union must take on the ideals of its founding fathers and be careful of not “paving the road for ideological colonisation”.