Pope Francis blasts ‘woke’ Brussels for banning Christmas
THE Pope has compared the EU to a “Nazi dictatorship” for trying to impose “woke” rules on language, and ban using the word “Christmas”.
Pope Francis, 84, warned the European Union not to take the path of ideological colonisation as he returned from Greece after a four-day trip.
Last week, the EU was accused of trying to cancel Christmas after telling its staff to avoid the word in favour of “holiday period” because it could be offensive to non-Christians.
Eurocrats published the rule months ago as part of their guide on inclusive communication, details of which leaked and lead to a furious backlash.
Other suggestions in the book included replacing old Christian names such as Mary and John with international names such as Malika and Julio when using them in generic examples, and swapping the word “man-made” for “human-induced”.
Secularism
The Pontiff said that the language diktats, which the European Commissioner for Equality admitted “clearly needed more work”, was merely “a fad… watered-down secularism”.
He said while on board the papal plane on his return to the Vatican: “It is something that throughout history has not worked.
“In history, many dictatorships have tried to do these things. I’m thinking of Napoleon, the Nazi dictatorship, the Communist one.”
He added that the EU is “necessary” but it needs to avoid stirring up divisions among its member states, adding: “The European Union must be careful not to take the path of ideological colonisation. This could end up dividing countries and causing the EU to fail.
“The European Union must respect each country’s internal structure, its variety and not try to make them uniform.
“I don’t think it will do that, it wasn’t its intention, but it must be careful, because sometimes they come and throw projects like this one out there.”
Last week’s EU document also told staff to “avoid assuming that everyone is Christian” and that “not everyone celebrates the Christian holidays, and not all Christians celebrate them on the same dates”.
Instead of saying: “Christmas time can be stressful,” staff were told to say, “Holiday times can be stressful.”
However, after much criticism on social media Brussels subsequently announced it was now withdrawing the book, saying: “The guidelines clearly require more work.”