Thanks Archbishop Fabriciano!!
Your pal,
Children everywhere
Argentine archbishop slams Santa Claus
(AFP) – 1 day ago
BUENOS AIRES — A Roman Catholic archbishop surprised his parishioners in Argentina by telling the children that Santa Claus was not real, but instead a commercialized symbol of Christmas.
"That's not Christmas," Archbishop Fabriciano Sigampa of the northern city of Resistencia said in mass, insisting that children should not confuse celebrating the birth of Christ "with a fat man dressed in red."
Sigampa's ire was aroused by plans for a snow covered cabin in the city's main square where a Father Christmas figure would hear children's wishes and receive donated toys to be given out to poor children.
"Surely, in the coming days there will be a deluge of advertisements after they inaugurate the house where a fat man dressed in red lives. And we should not confuse, we should not confuse Christmas with that."
He said children "should know that, in reality, the gifts come from the efforts of their parents and with the help of Jesus."
After the bishop aired his objections, organizers dropped plans for a Santa and renamed the cabin the "House of Christmas."
Sigampa has attracted controversy before.
In the 1990s, he caused a stir by ordering a mural for the cathedral of the northern city of La Rioja that showed the Virgin Mary with then president Carlos Menem and members of the Catholic hierarchy.
On another note: "Virginia" is a proper Spanish name and I have an Argentinian friend named Virginia. There is no need for the pseudo-hispanization of adding "-ita" to the end of it
I don't think you should apply American notions of Santa to this situation without knowing more about Argentina's customs. If Santa is new to Argentina, and given the commercialization and secularization of Christmas in the U.S, then I can sympathize with the archbishop.