Bah! Humbug! Italy bishop tells children Santa doesn't exist

ROME — A Roman Catholic diocese successful Sicily publically apologized to outraged parents aft its bishop told a radical of children that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

In a Facebook station and consequent comments Friday, the diocese of Noto insisted that Bishop Antonio Stagliano didn’t mean to dash the dreams of the youngsters 2 weeks earlier Christmas.

The diocesan communications director, the Rev. Alessandro Paolino, said Stagliano was trying to underline the existent meaning of Christmas and the communicative of St. Nicholas, a bishop who gave gifts to the mediocre and was persecuted by a Roman emperor.

Italian quality reports quoted Stagliano arsenic saying during a caller spiritual festival that Santa doesn’t beryllium and that his reddish costume was created by the Coca-Cola institution for publicity.

“First of all, connected behalf of the bishop, I explicit my sorrow for this declaration which has created disappointment successful the small ones, and privation to specify that Monsignor Stagliano‘s intentions were rather different,” Paolino wrote connected the diocesan Facebook page.

“We surely indispensable not demolish the imaginativeness of children, but gully bully examples from it that are affirmative for life,” helium continued. “So Santa Claus is an effectual representation to convey the value of giving, generosity, sharing. But erstwhile this representation loses its meaning, you spot Santa Claus aka consumerism, the tendency to own, buy, bargain and bargain again, past you person to revalue it by giving it a caller meaning.”

But, if the nationalist comments conception of the Noto leafage were immoderate indication, the Sicilian parents weren’t having immoderate of it.

While respective welcomed the bishop’s effort to absorption connected the Catholic meaning of Christmas, others faulted Stagliano for interfering with household traditions and celebrations, and crushing the spirits of children whose aboriginal years were disrupted by the pandemic.

“You are the objection that, erstwhile it comes to families, children and household education, you don’t recognize a thing,” a commenter, identified arsenic Mary Avola, wrote.