No good cancelling Xmas - Galantino

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 30 - Monsignor Nunzio Galantino, the secretary general of Italian bishops conference CEI, blasted alleged attempts to cancel or hide Christmas in an editorial published Monday in Catholic monthly Vita Pastorale.
    "If this is Christmas, I find the decisions of those who would like to cancel or camouflage Christmas to respect other traditions or religious confessions, making fools of themselves in the process, to be specious and ideological," Galantino wrote.
    The comments come amid a furore over an alleged decision by a school in Rozzano, near Milan, to scrap its traditional Christmas concert in order to stage a more 'secular' event. The principal at the centre of the storm, Marco Parma, at the weekend denied reports he had taken down crucifixes and said he had not cancelled any planned events in the run-up to Christmas.
    He said a concert would take place at Rozzano's Garofani secondary school on December 17.
    He also said that its primary school would hold a concert on January 21, as decided at the start of the academic year in September.
    At the time the decision to hold a winter concert in January rather than a pre-Christmas event did not attract the media's attention.
    "The only request that I opposed was that of two mums who wanted to teach hymns to the Christian children during the lunch break, which I continue to consider inappropriate," Parma said.