“Not everyone celebrates the Christian holidays, and not all Christians celebrate them on the same dates,” the document said.
The guide encouraged staff based in the Belgian capital, Brussels, and Luxembourg to avoid a phrase such as “Christmas time can be stressful” and instead say “Holiday times can be stressful.”
It also recommended using the term “first name,” rather than “Christian name,” and said that when presenting hypothetical examples, officials should “not only choose names that are typically from one religion.”
Instead of “Maria and John are an international couple,” the guide recommended saying “Malika and Julio are an international couple.”
COMECE president Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J., said: “Neutrality cannot mean relegating religion to the private sphere. Christmas is not only part of European religious traditions but also of European reality.”
“Respecting religious diversity cannot lead to the paradoxical consequence of suppressing the religious element from public discourse.”
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