Posted on 12/07/2004 6:07:38 PM PST by missyme
ROME - An Italian teacher's efforts to make a Christmas carol more acceptable to young Muslim students by removing the word "Jesus" has rekindled the debate over religious symbols in the Roman Catholic country.
A middle-school teacher in the northern Italian town of Como set off a storm when she told Muslims in her class that if they preferred they could replace the line "this is the day of Jesus" with "this is the day of virtue."
"Jesus banned in Christmas songs" the daily Il Giornale, run by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's brother, said in a front-page headline Sunday.
"Substituting the word Jesus in a Christmas song is a serious mistake and an offence against the entire Catholic community," Como's mayor, Stefano Bruno, from the center-right Forza Italia (Go Italy) party, told Agi news agency.
Religion has been an increasingly prickly issue in Italy as immigrant communities grow.
A judge sparked a nationwide controversy a year ago when he ordered that a crucifix be taken off a school wall. Pope John Paul weighed in saying it was undemocratic and dangerous to try to erase a country's religious symbols.
Tension mounted again earlier this year when a nursery school refused to hire a Muslim woman, saying her headscarf could scare the children.
But before the latest standoff exploded into a full-blown controversy, the 10- and 11-year-old students resolved the issue by opting to stick to the original lyrics.
The director of the school, Pasquale Capria, told reporters on Sunday: "The foreign students themselves told me it wasn't a problem for them to sing Jesus."
Foreigners, many of them Muslim, represent about 20 percent of the students at the school. There are some one million Muslims living in Italy, a country of around 57 million people.
duh...
...you could look it up!
We can.....#$@&^#$%^#@$#%##&^!!!
It's unbelievable how people are bending over for the Muslims.
Returning from Israel last week, one of the in-flight movies on my Swissair flight was "Shrek 2." When this movie first came out, Christians were offended by casual reference to transvestites.
For the in-flight movie (and probably for all European theater releases) the King's line "The old crusade wound is bothering me" was changed to "The old HUNTING wound is bothering me."
Oh I see I should open a Book of Lies to see Jesus Christ is a Muslim Prophet....
Great post. So true isn't it? Why is Christianity being diluted, when 76% of this country is Christian!
That is a really funny story. Thanks for sharing it.
Good response (I see your point), but, yes, Jesus is a great Muslim prophet. Islam claims to be to Christianity as Christianity claims to be to Judaism. And Bahai claims to be the successor to Islam!
I have no idea why the Non-Muslim world is cowering to the Muslim world, maybe because it is the only insane faith where if you kill yourself your rewarded with virgins and gifts of gold, so most are looking to go there..Shameful....
Is that the Hindenberg? My grandfather witnessed this event in person.(I think).
The Bin Laden family Christmas card
Well for one if Judiasm did not exsist neither would Christianity..
Since Jesus came through the Jews to the Gentile World that included the Arabs as they were Gentiles.
Muhammed came from a figment of an Arab's imagination...
ah, let me think now.
9/11 ,hundreds of attacks on our citizens and culture for years, beheadings, thier clerics preaching death to infidels (i believe i qualify here) a belief and hatred so powerful that they can strap bombs on and kill indescriminatly. i think we did not start this terror war
but by gosh we should put an end to it by the only means the vermin understand, until they say i give! let us live and we will stop. you and i both know that will never happen as long as thier book says kill us.
therefore onward chrisian soldier, let the new crusades begin in earnest.
Fox reported last night that 90% of the American public observes Christmas.
"A middle-school teacher in the northern Italian town of Como set off a storm when she told Muslims in her class that if they preferred they could replace the line 'this is the day of Jesus' with 'this is the day of virtue.'"
No matter what they ban or forbid...
CHRIST IS KING!
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
Jesus banned in Christmas songs" the daily Il Giornale, run by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's brother, said in a front-page headline Sunday.
From the article:
It's a religion of peace, didn't you know that?
Time to unveil the new tagline.....
"Kill for Jesus"?
Can you point me to the passage in the gospels where you are instructed to do this?
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