On his flight back to Rome, Francis criticized the controversial directive on ‘inclusive language’. On a humiliating U-turn, the directive has been cancelled.
Newsroom (December 8, 2021, 1:00 PM, Gaudium Press) The reaction against the internal guide to standards for “inclusive communication” by the European Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, does not stop. Now she has responded to statements made by Pope Francis on his return to Rome from Athens referring to the controversial and now cancelled guideline.
As readers may remember, the directive raised a lot of dust, stated in the chapter dedicated to “Culture, lifestyle or belief,” that it should be “avoided to consider that someone is a Christian,” since “Not everyone celebrates the Christian holidays, and not all Christians celebrate them on the same dates.”
As practical applications of these principles, the instructions indicated the use of generic names instead of “Christian names”; for example, instead of saying “Mary and Joseph are an international couple”, one should say “Malika and Giulio are an international couple”; it invited not to use phrases like “the Christmas period can be stressful”, but “the Holiday period can be stressful”.
In the face of the controversy raised, Commissioner Dalli announced on November 30 that she was withdrawing these guidelines. But the issue stuck to the collective retina and mind, and the Pope was asked about it on the plane yesterday.
Anachronism of watered-down secularism
“This is an anachronism, an anachronism of history,” Francis said referring to the document. “In history many, many dictatorships have tried to do so. Think of Napoleon: (…) Think of the Nazi dictatorship, the communist one… it is a fashion of a watered-down secularism, distilled water…(…)the European Union must take in hand the ideals of the founding fathers, which were ideals of unity, of greatness, and be careful not to take the path of ideological colonization. This could end up dividing the countries and [causing] the European Union to fail,” said the Pontiff, in widely publicized statements.
The comments induced Commissioner Dalli to respond. “I want to assure you that neither I nor my staff want to cancel Christmas,” Dalli declared. And she insisted on the inclusive intention to “embrace diversity.” “I am sure that the Pope understands that inclusion is the necessary essence so that no one is left out of our society, and that is what I want,” she emphasized.
Semantics are being exposed, lexical resources are being employed to cancel out Europe’s Christian tradition. But from the Commissioner’s cautious attitude, observers can gather that the gunpowder is not yet dry to be used openly against Christianity. Underground strategies and euphemisms still need to be used. At least for the time being…
Compiled by Zephania Gangl
