Metz-y Christmas: Jesus Kidnapped from French Nativity Scene, Joseph and Mary Beheaded

'Tis the season to be jolly...

notes Duncan Hill; and yet

I didn't see this reported in the French or other European press. You'd think this would make the news

My prayer for this Christmas and the coming new year is that civility returns to Western Civilization.

Thanks to the Rair Foundation, we learn that 

It’s that time of year again in Open Borders Europe. While families hope to celebrate the birth of Christ in peace, the grim reality repeats itself: Christmas markets are under terror watch, churches face vandalism, Christmas trees are burned, and even the nativity scene – symbolizing Jesus and Mary – is desecrated, yet again, in a trend that has worsened with every passing year since Europe opened its doors to mass migration in 2015.

The latest incident took place in Metz, France [writes Natacha Kadur], where two of the four figures in the Nativity scene installed outside Metz train station were vandalized. City services discovered the figures’ heads had been ripped off on Tuesday.

 … This is not an isolated event. Across France and much of Western Europe, acts of violence and hatred against Christian traditions have become an annual ritual of their own. Churches are defiled, Christmas markets are monitored like war zones, festive and religious decorations are systematically destroyed, and even those dressing up as Santa Claus are attacked. What once brought communities together now comes under attack by those who have no respect for European heritage, aided by leftist policies that open the gates to those who openly despise the West and its Christian roots.

A Pattern of Destruction

Every year, we see the same trend, and yet, the media and political elites remain silent or dismiss such incidents as “isolated cases” or “mindless acts of vandalism.” These are not random acts; they are part of a growing hostility toward Christianity and Western culture, enabled by open-border policies and the deliberate erasure of European identity.

Who Is to Blame?

While police investigate this latest attack in Metz, the bigger question is ignored: Who brought this chaos to Europe in the first place? The answer is clear. The same politicians who champion open borders, mass migration, and “tolerance” have created a climate where Christian traditions are no longer safe.

 … The desecration of nativity scenes, like this latest incident in Metz, is not just an attack on religious symbols. It is an attack on Europe’s culture, history, and identity. Every torn-down decoration, every burned tree, and every defiled church sends a message: Christianity has no place in the Europe of tomorrow. 

Rair stands for Rise Align Ignite Reclaim

Missing the Miss: Europe Trying to Outlaw "Sexist" Expressions Such as "Mademoiselle", Society Failing to Catch Up

One of the of the left's crusades in Europe has been trying to outlaw the word "Miss" for an unmarried woman — as, also, the old continent is trying to do away with, say, the Miss France competitions (the Netherlands scrapped theirs this year) — although it turns out that Switzerland banned the word already back in the 1970s and a recent RTS article deplores how it has been hard to get Swiss society to follow through and reject the "sexist" term. 

This came to mind as a reader named McGehee responded to a Sarah Hoyt InstaLien about Kamala Harris as follows:

I guess we need to learn more about Mlles. Hidalgo et Rousseau, to fully appreciate the comparison. As in, how many AOCs are they worth?

Bad boy, McGehee! Bad boy! A French directive for businesses from 2017 states as follows:

Eliminate all : head of the family, mademoiselle, maiden name, married or husband's name, patronymic name, etc. These expressions are banned from French law. Monsieur and Madame are sufficient. For example, remove "Mademoiselle" from all forms, letters, employment contracts, etc.

For instance, the word "Mademoiselle" is persona non grata in Switzerland's government, explains Pauline Rappaz, while Libération's Pauline Moullot points out that the French administration and legal system alone no longer use it.

Une circulaire de Matignon appelait ainsi les administrations à «privilégier» le terme de «madame» et à «éliminer autant que possible» des «formulaires» et «correspondances» l'appellation «mademoiselle», tout comme «nom de jeune fille», «nom patronymique», «nom d'épouse» et «nom d'époux», pour leur préférer «nom de famille» et «nom d'usage».

Dans l’entreprise, un guide coécrit par le ministère du travail et celui de l’égalité femmes-hommes publié en automne dernier et à destination des PME et TPE préconise d’adopter un «langage sans stéréotype»:

Éliminez toutes les expressions sexistes telles que : chef de famille, mademoiselle, nom de jeune fille, nom d'épouse ou d'époux, nom patronymique, etc. Ces expressions sont bannies du droit français. Monsieur et Madame suffisent. Par exemple, supprimer le «Mademoiselle» de tous les formulaires, courriers, contrats de travail…

So, in your private life, you can still use "Mademoiselle". 

For now.

Agnes Repplier on Humor and Other Subjects: "People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization"

Sunday is the day that Agnes Repplier passed away 74 years ago. The American writer (1858-1950) is three or four generations removed from us (if not five), and seems forgotten today but the woman once described as no less than "our dean of essayists" sounds like she was the equivalent of a blogger for over 50 years at the turn of the century (19th-20th). 

Wouldn't you say that the following quote applies to the left and their wokesters for (at least) the past 25 years?

People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.

Amen!

As it were, Agnes Repplier managed to put humor and mockery into perspective:

Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.

Hugh Prather said much the same thing: there are two kinds of humor in this life — the humor that unites, and the humor that divides. One is tempted to apply the following Agnes Repplier quote to conservatives and the quote following that to leftists:

The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.

The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.

It has been wisely said that we cannot really love anybody at whom we never laugh.

There is always a secret irritation about a laugh into which we cannot join.

It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

And to conclude:

We hear so much about the sanitary qualities of laughter, we have been taught so seriously the gospel of amusement, that any writer, preacher, or lecturer, whose smile is broad enough to be infectious, finds himself a prophet in the market-place. Laughter, we are told, freshens our exhausted spirits and disposes us to good-will–which is true. It is also true that laughter quiets our uneasy scruples and disposes us to simple savagery. Whatever we laugh at, we condone, and the echo of man’s malicious merriment rings pitilessly through the centuries. Humour which has no scorn, wit which has no sting, jests which have no victim, these are not the pleasantries which have provoked mirth, or fed the comic sense of a conventionalized rather than a civilized world.