Naples

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
1 Jan 2012

One commentator complained about the Christians hijacking Christmas for religious purposes, like claiming cricketers hijacked the Sydney Test!  Christians need to continue working so the original religious purpose of the holiday is not buried by Santa and commercialism.

The days between Christmas and New Year are often quieter, giving time for rest and reflection, visiting family and friends, and a prayer.

Different countries celebrate Christmas in different ways.  President Obama now has a holiday tree in the White House Grounds.  Things are worse in Britain.  Not so in Manila, where Mary and Jesus still have the central roles.

And not so in Naples which I visited before Christmas to purchase a Christmas crib for the new Australian centre in Rome.  The narrow cobbled streets of the historic centre were packed tight with families, youths on the prowl, nuns and pickpockets inspecting the cribs.

Naples is strange and wonderful mixing grime and elegance, the bizarre and beautiful.  It has magnificent old palaces, monasteries, churches, the opera house.  The Bay and the Amalfi coast are among the most beautiful spots on earth.  However mischief makers claim that Africa begins at Naples and a cynical Neapolitan priest once told me that Naples is the only African city without a European quarter!

Naples has its own volcano Mt. Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompeii in 79 A.D., erupting 30 times since then, most recently in 1944.  Neapolitans acknowledge disaster is inevitable at some stage.  God's judgement is recognized as explicitly as the sins of the flesh and one popular image features a cross planted in the fires of purgatory, surrounded by the faces of those being purified for heaven.  A bishop or priest and a nun are always there.

The crib was invented by St. Francis of Assisi after visiting Bethlehem, Christ's birth place, in 1220.  It impresses on the popular imagination the humanity and vulnerability of God's Son.

Neapolitan cribs depict the Holy Family in tatty ruins, often around a broken classical column.  The three wise men are handsome and elegant in 17th century costumes, while the shepherds are ugly and old, caricatures of dismay or surprise, with their sheep and bagpipes.  Often an old drunk is nearby sleeping it off.

Naples' cribs are regularly beautiful, like the one for Domus Australia, but they all demonstrate that salvation is offered to everyone, not just the staid and respectable.

That is a good Christmas message for the New Year.