Catholic bashers don't know how to read, that's why

To the children of Felix, "the rapist", Manalo, no!  Our pope did not question whether there is a Christmas after all!

The problem with you guys, is that you don't know how to read.

Uhmmmmmmmmm............

Guess, they won't understand this too, eh.  Because they don't read!

Ha!

Opo.....Siyanga po....

SOBRE!!!


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(Reuters) - And so it came to pass that in the eighth year of Pope Benedict's reign, some tabloid and social media decreed that he had cancelled Christmas.  [And almost all anti-Catholic bashers had a heyday passing this on!  Just like the condom issue.  Ugh!]

The day after Benedict's latest book "The Infancy Narratives - Jesus of Nazareth" - was published on November 20, Vatican officials found some headlines they were not expecting.  [Well, in some respects it was good publicity.  :)]

"Killjoy pope crushes Christmas nativity traditions," read one tabloid headline, claiming that Benedict had snubbed traditions such as animals in nativity scenes and caroling.  [And they haven't even read the entire book.  Ugh!]

"Pope sets out to debunk Christmas myths," ran another.

Holy Scrooge! Some blogs unceremoniously branded Benedict the new Grinch that stole Christmas and one rocketed him to the "top of the grumpy list for 2012."

And then there was this zinger headline from a web news site: "Pope bans Christmas".

Coming little more than a month before Christmas, it was the last thing the Vatican needed - another image problem for the pope.

Alarmed by some of the headlines, the Catholic social network XT3 felt compelled to run a blog that dissected the media's coverage of the book.

It was headlined: "The pope has not banned Christmas".

So what was all the fuss about?

In the 137-page book, the pope states a fact: that in the gospels there is "no reference" to the presence of animals in the stable - actually, it was probably a cave - where Jesus was born.  [They did not even read the entire passage!  Because as expected, they won't spend a dime to buy the book!]

Bloggers had a feast with that, with one calling it "Bombshell number one".  [Well, I think the bomb fell on the empty coconut shells of these bashers.  Ha!]

What some neglected was that just a few sentences down, the pope states that even today, "No representation of the crib is complete without the ox and the ass".  [Guess who became the ox and the ass now huh?]

He explains: The tradition of the ass and ox came from reflecting on parts of the Old and New Testaments. Christian iconography then adopted the motif early in Church history to show that even animals knew Jesus was the son of God.  [Guess the other ass who bashed the pope did not know that, eh?]

In other words, the tradition that has developed over the centuries matters more than an unverifiable fact, at least as far as the case of the ox and ass in the stable is concerned.

"I think that what people need to realize here is that the pope is trying to be as historical as he can be," said Father Robert Dodaro, professor of patristics, or the study of early Church writings, at Rome's Patristic Institute.

"He wants to see the biblical narratives as history where possible but he is also trying to explain details in the narratives that cannot be historically verified," he said.  [While some of those who do not even believe in Christianity were the first one to bash the Pope!  Goodness me.]

Some bloggers, taking their cue from television and website headlines, even wrote that the pope had spoken out against Christmas carols.

In the book, the opposite was true.

Benedict says the evangelist Luke wrote that at the moment of Jesus' birth the angels "said" the well-known phrase "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased".  [the first Christmas carol we keep on saying every Sunday Mass and great feasts of the Church.  By the way, do the bashers even sing this song, other than during Christmas season?  Nah.  They don't even know the song at all!]

But in the next line he explains that "Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is actually song", that "the angels' song of praise has never gone silent", and that it is "only natural that simple believers (even today) join in their caroling on the Holy Night".

So, no need to cancel any school performances.

Another section of the book that irked some bloggers is where the pope restates what biblical scholars have known for decades, if not centuries - that Jesus was born several years earlier than the first century AD.  [Did the pope even question December 25?  Nah.]

Benedict writes that since King Herod died in 4 BC, Jesus was probably born "a few years earlier". He attributes the erroneous fixing of the year of Jesus' birth to a miscalculation by the monk Dionysius Exiguous some 500 years later.

"No one's faith should be shaken by this book," said Dodaro. "On the contrary, it should be fortified by this account. This is a believable account of the birth of Christ," he said.

And in St Peter's Square, workmen have started building the Vatican's larger than life nativity scene, which is expected to have animals and singing angels.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella)


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And will the bashers even put up Nativity scenes at their offices or homes?

Nah.

I guess who became the ass in this one, eh?