By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
I hesitate to bring up a gloomy topic during the Christmas season, which should be a time of glad tidings of great joy. But the wave of Muslim migrants pouring into Europe and the reaction of the European governments to the incursion forces one to ponder the fate of Christmas in a multicultural society. It is a topic we must deal with if we want the Christmas season as we know it to endure.
I was struck by a curious paradox this past Halloween: I saw politically correct multiculturalists and a leader on the religious right coming together to attack Halloween revelry. I am not talking about the dark and bizarre forms of exhibitionism that take place in parts of bohemian neighborhoods in San Francisco and Greenwich Village. I mean the kids out trick or treating, dressed like ghosts and goblins that has long been part of American life.
On the Christian right we had Pat Robertson on the 700 Club warning his viewers of the moral dangers of permitting their children to participate in “Halloween’s festival for demonic spirits,” which he said was a modern reenactment of the ancient Druids going “to somebody’s house and asking for money. If they didn’t get the money, they’d kill one of their sheep. All this business about goblins and jack-o’-lanterns comes out of the demonic rituals of the Druids and the people who lived in England at that particular time.”
Some politically correct liberals saw things analogously. The Milford, Conn., school district banned Halloween parades at the city’s elementary schools, informing parents of the “fear of excluding children who can’t or won’t participate in the tradition because of religious and cultural beliefs.” The letter sent to the parents also prohibited “students and staff from wearing Halloween costumes during the day.”
You will be pleased to hear (I think) that the Milford school district reversed itself after receiving a deluge of complaints from parents. One petition with over 200 signatures called the cancellation of the Halloween parade “nothing less than an assault on tradition. These are our American customs and traditions and we should not have to give them up because others find them offensive!”
But the Milford school district’s chief operations officer did not surrender without a parting shot. “Milford Public Schools do have many children from diverse beliefs, cultures, and religions,” he said. “The goal is for all children to feel comfortable and definitely not alienated when they come to school.”
Are you having the same thought that I am? Wouldn’t it have been great if parents had gathered together to protest with as much vigor the prohibition of school prayer and Christmas carols at school assemblies?
Why didn’t they? Because virtually no one — certainly not the trick-or-treating kids — sees any Christian dimension to Halloween. That is not the case with Christmas. The awareness that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, and not just Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, has not been wiped from the country’s collective consciousness in the manner that the connection between Halloween and All Saints Day has been.
I would bet the ranch that not one in ten-thousand modern trick-or-treaters has ever heard of All Saints, or All Hallows, Day. The ghosts and goblins are the whole deal for them.
That is why it was strange to see Pat Robertson and the politically correct liberals agitated about Halloween. The religious dimension of all the costumes and hoopla no longer exists. The secularists have had their victory with Halloween. What should alarm us is not that some kid in a witch’s hat on Halloween is in danger of selling her soul to the Devil, but that what happened to Halloween will one day happen to Christmas.
And it could happen, as the multicultural wave sweeps over us. In our concern — a Christian concern, by the way; you don’t see it in the rest of the world — not to “offend minorities,” we could surrender on the notion that we have a right for our cultural and religious heritage to be part of the nation’s life. It could result in expressions of Christianity, even something as innocent and high-minded as singing Silent Night, becoming a hate crime.
There is a recent example of how that devolution might come about. In Germany this year, many primary schools and kindergartens abolished the celebration of St. Martin’s Day, traditionally celebrated on November 11. (St. Martin of Tours is the Roman soldier frequently pictured cutting his cloak in half with his sword to share with a beggar during a snowstorm.)
In many European countries the day is celebrated with bonfires and children carrying lanterns and singing songs in the streets, for which they are rewarded with candies.
I have never been in Europe when the festivities occur, but I think it safe to say that the children singing and collecting goodies are expressing no more of a religious devotion to St. Martin than American children are honoring All Saints Day when they trick or treat on Halloween.
Even so, the reports from Germany are that many schools are renaming the day or abolishing it altogether in consideration for the Muslims living in their communities, a number greatly augmented by the recent wave of refugees from the Middle East. One German newspaper quoted Nanette Weidelt, head of the Don Bosco Montessori School, who renamed the event the “Festival of Lights” in order to “facilitate the integration” of the Muslim migrants. Leftist politician Rüdiger Sagel told reporters the change was a “necessary response to the high proportion of Muslim children in the day-care centers. You should not impose the Christian tradition.”
Is it alarmist to think that the celebration of Christmas could come under a comparable assault? Not if you ask me. Militant secularists in Europe are seizing on the moment, playing on the Christians sense of responsibility for the downtrodden to push for a society where Christian beliefs are marginalized to the point where they are no longer visible expressions of the spiritual heritage of their communities. There is no reason to think the United States will not find itself under similar pressure as the number of Muslim immigrants to the country continues to grow.
Those pushing for the secularizing may think they are engaged in a merciful and humanitarian effort. The society that they will get if they prevail will likely be neither merciful nor humanitarian.
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