Christmas party at Italian primary school: “Jesus” is replaced with “cuckoo”

In consideration of the feelings of non-Christian children, passages from Christmas carols have been unceremoniously changed in a primary school in northern Italy. This caused a great deal of anger among the parents.

The cuckoo is sung instead of Jesus. This did not even go unnoticed by the German news portal focus.de, which referred to a TV report from RAI in its report. The episode took place in a primary school in the municipality of Agna, where fundamental changes were made to the lyrics of a song for the annual Christmas party. Instead of “Jesus will soon be born”, the children had to sing “Cuckoo is made from above”. And furthermore, the passage “Where the angels prepare Jesus’ birth” was replaced with “All together prepare a feast in the blue sky”.

With these changes, the school reportedly wanted to show consideration for the feelings of non-Christian children and parents. However, the educational institution has provoked a great deal of anger from some parents. According to the headteacher’s attempts to explain, it was a misunderstanding, as the amended draft text had not yet been finalised. In the meantime, however, the children had already learnt the text by heart.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party had previously introduced a bill in parliament to protect Christmas at schools and universities, reports focus.de. The right-wing party Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) wants to prevent Christmas celebrations from being renamed “winter festivals”.

Italienische Grundschule / Weihnachtsfeier: „Jesus“ wird mit „Kuckuck“ ausgetauscht – UnserTirol24