The Culture Wars and Christmas

From Father Benedict Groeschel:

As most of you know, on my recent program on EWTN, I made an appeal along with Bill Donohue of The Catholic League to get people to identify stores and other merchants and agencies that refuse to acknowledge Christmas. I have to say we’ve been extremely successful. One lady who attends our conferences in Manhattan got a hundred of her friends to cut up their credit cards to Macy’s and send them back, so Macy’s, I understand, is even playing Christmas carols when you call in on the phone. As they said in the Second World War, “sub sighted, sank same”. I understand also that various other big companies are changing the anti-Christmas policy.

If you happen to know any companies or merchants that are telling you that their employees can’t say “Merry Christmas” or not carrying Christmas items, or others that are outlawing Christmas, be sure to report them to the Catholic League website. We are preparing to identify people as “Grinches of the Year”.

This is really not a light-hearted attempt. Ninety-seven percent of the people in the United States think that the celebration of Christmas is appropriate; eighty-five percent consider themselves Christian in some way or another. Why can’t we have some recognition of our holiday?

If anybody says to you “Happy Holidays”, say back “Merry Christmas”. If the person is not a Christian, you can say “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays”, but don’t leave Christmas out. A kind of funny detail came through: one of the big chains of stores now has their phone message on, and in a slightly different voice, which has obviously been tacked on, and they say “Merry Christmas.” Keep plugging and who knows, we may even keep this a basically Christian country. God bless.