Children’s Choir In Italy Barred From Singing ‘Silent Night’ Because They Didn’t Want To Offend Other Religions

Oh gee, I wonder which religion they were afraid of offending…

According to this, a children’s choir in Italy wasn’t permitted to sing the lyrics to “Silent Night, Holy Night” during their Winter Recital. They had to hum the tune instead. The reason? Concert organizers were afraid that the mere mention of Jesus’s name would offend people of other religions.

Children in Flero, Italy, did not sing the lyrics of Holy Night.

Instead pupils hummed the carol during a concert dubbed the “Winter Recital” in Bresciano, northern Italy.

The decision was criticised by a local councillor.

Elena Franceschini, the culture commissioner for the town of Bresciano, said: “Even if the state and the school claim to be secular, we would like to have ‘Christmas Concerts’ and not ‘Winter Recitals’ where children can feel free to sing Holy Night without thinking that this offends or excludes pupils who belong to other cultures or other religions or who declare to be atheists.”

It wasn’t just in Italy where this happened. The article mentions other places around Europe where similar choirs had to censor religious references from popular Christmas carols because apparently some non-Christians (*cough Muslims cough, cough*) can’t bear to hear the name of Jesus being sung during Christmastime –

Youngsters preparing for their school production in Pontevico were given lyric sheets with Jesus’ name removed from popular tunes.

Defending the bizarre decision, headteacher Paola Bellini said: “Children will sing songs that evoke universal themes of peace and solidarity.”

It comes days after a school in Sweden removed references to Christianity from a popular Christmas carol to avoid offending others.

The school in Amal cut lines from ‘Now Light 1,000 Christmas Lights’ which make references to Jesus and God.

A line about “a star over Bethlehem” was edited – and replaced with the phrase “the star over all of us”.

 

I loved the response from a Swedish man whose grandchildren attend the school in Amal where the songs were censored. He called out the real reason why these songs were changed – and it all comes down to bending over backwards and changing Swedish culture for Muslim migrants –

The move provoked criticism, with one of the pupil’s grandfathers writing an angry letter to a local newspaper.

Calling for an end to “special treatment for newly arrived students”, he wrote: “Who took the decision to change the Christmas song?

“The idea was that migrants would be integrated into Swedish society and not vice versa.

“We shouldn’t be afraid of our Swedish traditions. Soon we’ll have none left.”

Bingo.

One of the left’s favorite talking points is that the West has no unique culture and there’s nothing from Europe that’s worth preserving because they’re all just a bunch of murdering and raping racists. Which is entirely a bunch of BS. Whether you’re Swedish, German, Italian, or American, you have specific traditions in your culture that you hold dear. And none of us should have to hide those traditions, just because a bunch of easily-offended migrants come flooding into our borders.

They might choose not to participate, but that doesn’t mean that we have to put a stop to what we’re doing.

Sure, all of these instances happened in Europe and Europe has become more and more secular over time. But I’ve learned that what’s happening now in Europe is only a few years away from happening in America. Europe is our cautionary tale, and we’d do well to pay attention.