Vatican explains its Christmas Nativity Scene

December 11th 2021.

After the 2020 fiasco, in which their Christmas Nativity Scene featured Fisher-Price toys, a spaceman, and a statue of Moloch, the Vatican has produced what Pope Francis has described as a "traditional crèche" for its 2021 offering.

Nobody could be offended by this one!

Said a spokesman, "Our sculptor has been influenced by 1970s British television in his design. Although there are also influences from ancient Peladon."

He went on to explain that the young lady on the left was clearly the Virgin Mary, and actually a resembled a human being rather than the 2020 rag doll. The older man on the right was Joseph, and also designed to resemble a real human being.

The one-eyed egg was not of course supposed to be Our Lord (who is missing entirely to avoid offending non-Christians), but was almost certainly an angel. The two warriors were in fact shepherds, as it was a well-known fact that first century shepherds always wore armour to protect their sheep against wolves (cf. Gospel according to St James Martin).

Moloch, included in the 2020 nativity scene as an ecumenical gesture.

Reactions from the public have been largely favourable. Dr Taylor Marshall, in his show, described the scene as "very moving", and Austen Ivereigh added "I see the one-eyed hexapod as an embodiment of Pachamama, whom we all adore. See my new book Pope Francis talks in his sleep, consisting of magisterial eavesdroppings on the papal slumbers."

By the way, Dr Marshall, if you ever read this, "Eccles" rhymes with "freckles". Stay saved.

The Advent Calendar

So, finally, we reach day 24 of Advent, and all the little windows on my spiritually nourishing Advent calendar have been opened.

We see here all that is best in contemporary Catholicism. None of that rigid stuff with Jesus and the Apostles, the Saints, the Martyrs, or the Doctors of the Church - although at least two of the people on the calendar humbly expect to become saints when they die, one is a martyr to flatulence, and two more think they will be doctors of the Church.

Who can these top Catholics be?

The pictures include two puppets (not counting you, Austen!) and one heathen idol; one pope and two future popes; an expert on human flourishing; the two fattest cardinals since Wolsey; at least two people who are certifiably insane; and a man with a lampshade on his head.

However, the makers of the calendar have excluded all dangerously rigid and merciless Catholics: so no Benedict XVI, no Sarah, no Schneider, no Burke, no Viganò, no Festing, etc. etc.

And a happy Christmas to all readers!

The Eccles crèche, with the unusually large king.

A nude man at the Vatican

It's O.K., this piece is nothing to do with you, Monsignor Luigi Capozzi, or you, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, so you can relax. No, it is about this year's Vatican Nativity Scene, condemned by the notoriously pure-minded Facebook as being sexually provocative, because it contains the figure of a nude man.

Probably the first nude man to appear on this blog.

It's a very exciting creche this year, and manages to eliminate Mary, Joseph and Jesus almost entirely, giving preference to Works of Mercy. Some Works of Mercy are more natural than others: take Burying the Dead for example. (The part of the tableau that portrays Burying the Dead looks something like a scene from Dracula...) If my Great-auntie Moly expires behind the sofa after an overdose of gin, should I leave her there for a few years, or get her buried? (Actually, putting a match to her in the garden would be simplest, what with all that gin inside her...) It's true that explaining in Confession that I still haven't buried my great-aunt could be fairly awkward. But I digress.

At the Vatican Press Office, they keep their clothes on, no matter what Amoris Laetitia says.

Although I thought initially that the nude man was Fr James Martin SJ, and that he was in the nativity scene to publicize his latest theological idea - that Jesus was simply a disciple of John the Baptist - I may be wrong, since he (whoever he is) is apparently there to symbolize Clothing the Naked.

A rejected design for the Vatican Nativity scene.

In the Eccles household, we don't include scenes of explicit nudity, but we go for a traditional, rigid, interpretation of the scene. The only oddity is that we have one extra king, who is the wrong size, but he was given to us by a priest, so that shouldn't be a problem.

We really don't have the heart to sack him.

Let's finish with a couple of Anglican nativity scenes from a collection assembled by Fergus Butler-Gallie.

Sheffield - the tin man from the Wizard of Oz, and his oddly-shaped tinned baby.

St Alban's - hand-knitted Teletubbies.

Correction: even on a blog intended for family reading, there have been scenes of nude men before. See this piece about the Atheists' Nude Calendar and Richard Dawkins's reluctance to participate...

We wish you a miserable Christmas

This year, Catholics, Anglicans and atheists have a single message for us. Pope Francis, no less, has told us that, this year, Christmas is a charade. Father Giles Fraser of the BBC is dreaming of a Blue Christmas. Finally, there's Kevin McKenna of the Guardian with a rant, Away with the manger! It's a holiday, not a holy day.

Down with this sort of thing (even the outsize king)!

That's that, then. No carol-singing, please; no wishing people - even Christians - a Happy Christmas; I think it may be OK to say "Season's Greetings", since that can be said at any time, and doesn't actually mean anything. "Happy Holidays" is also out, but the sort of people who say that are miserable humourless Guardian-reading types anyway.

So how should we "celebrate" Christmas? Will sitting in a dark cupboard for three days satisfy our distinguished commentators? Or should we go out into the streets and cry "Woe, woe, and thrice woe!"?

"Woe, woe, and thrice woe!"

We've already had many happy festivals recently, what with Hallowe'en, Guy Fawkes Night, Thanksgiving, Black Friday (your mileage may vary here), so it seems a bit excessive to rejoice just because God sent his Son to the Earth to redeem mankind - hey! most of us didn't even need redeeming, as my spiritual director, Fr Phil of St Daryl the Apostate's Church, is at pains to point out.

Many will say that the usual way to celebrate Christmas - eating and drinking until you feel ill, sending cards to people you hate, buying people presents they don't want, watching rubbish on the television, etc. - is quite enough to make most of us miserable, and that this is what God (or at least the Pope) wants. So how can we stamp out the other, more joyful, aspects of Christmas - those that somehow associate it with Christ?

Private Eye is apparently unaware of The Return of the J.C. (H/T Gareth Hurley)

As Fr Phil put it in last year's Midnight Mass sermon to a congregation of three (one old lady with her hearing-aid turned off, a sleeping man who had walked in by mistake after the pub closed, and myself), "My text today is from an old English carol, We all like figgy pudding. (We shall be singing this later as our offertory hymn, in an arrangement by Paul Inwood.) Some of you may be feeling guilty at this point - perhaps you don't like figgy pudding? It is important to realise that these words, like 'We believe in God', are purely a liturgical cliché. Following the Spirit of Vatican II, we realise that they do not commit us to anything. God loves us all - in a metaphorical sense - even those who have chosen a jam roly-poly pudding lifestyle."

Purely symbolic - like angels, shepherds, God, etc.

Well, Fr Phil's sermons are usually too deep for me, but I think that - as usual - he is liberating us from the more traditional aspects of Christian worship, such as Christmas. That leaves us free to be as miserable as we wish. Enjoy!

Royal pardon for Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cranmer, the pioneer of "competing" with the Catholic Church, who was put to death for being an Anglican, has been given a Royal Pardon following a long campaign by his admirers.

Thomas Cranmer - was he unjustly convicted?

Nowadays, of course it is not illegal to be an Anglican - indeed, there are rumours that members of the Royal Family indulge in such practices - although it is still frowned upon in many circles. For example, a man was arrested recently for saying to a mounted police officer "Your horse is Anglican!" However, at the time when Cranmer died, it was still considered to be a serious offence against normal, decent, Catholic society. Cranmer's own history is particularly sad, for at one stage he "swung both ways" and attempted to give up Anglican practices: in the end however he "came out" and paid the price.

Proud to come out as Anglicans!

The Catholic Church has itself been criticised for attempting to compromise with Anglicans. There have been the notorious Warwick Street Masses, where "Anglican patrimony" has been celebrated as a result of Pope Benedict XVI's attempts to bring Anglicans back into the fold. Indeed, Pope Francis also has shocked traditionalists with his "Who am I to judge?" remarks, indicating that Anglicans who attempted to live a Catholic life should only be burned as a last resort.

The Church's Thesis - also a great influence on "competing".

On the whole, however, it is clear that Anglicans are being accepted more and more as "normal" members of society, especially since in many cases they are indistinguishable from ordinary secular people - the days when they would deliberately shock people by attending church services seem to be over for good. In this context, Cranmer's pardon (whether or not he was guilty of Anglicanism) is a natural reaction to a change in public opinion.

Modern ecumenical belief - part Buddhist, part Disney.

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Meanwhile, a Happy Christmas to all readers!

Unfortunately, one of our kings seems to be a little on the tall side.