Celebration of Christmas began at St Elizabeth Hospital in Hyderabad in southeast Pakistan - Photo: Columban Fr Robert McCulloch
On December 16, the annual very public celebration of Christmas began at St Elizabeth Hospital in Hyderabad in southeast Pakistan. The crib procession took place through the hospital grounds with Christian, Muslim and Hindu staff and doctors and nurses with the Catholic bishop of Hyderabad carrying the large crib figures to be put into the crib in front of the main hospital entrance. Right in the public eye. As has been done since 2005. And then the switch was turned on for all the lights that cover the hospital building.
Christmas in Pakistan isn’t a “woke” celebration because Pakistan, in spite of all its troubles, is a country where religious is taken seriously and also embraces what Christians do in celebrating their feasts. The woke agenda about Christmas in Australia has nothing to do with “respecting other religions” but is aimed at “eliminating all religions”. Pakistani believers have the right heart to do the right thing. Not like David Jones in Sydney that darkens its Christmas windows while St Elizabeth Hospital in Hyderabad turns on the lights and illumines the night and the neighbourhood with the joy of the birth of Christ the Lord. We in Pakistan do it better! We have a real faith agenda, not a pseudo woke agenda.
And immediately after the setting up of the crib, we had the opening and blessing of the new extensions to the OPD and ER at the hospital which were completed in the first week of December, very much with the help and generosity of Australian donors. Our multi-faith medical and healthcare staff were present side by side with the bishop. We do inter-faith harmony very well at St Elizabeth just by being who we are.
And then we all went to the residential hostel of the attached St Elizabeth School of Midwifery for the Christmas pageant and carol singing and dinner afterwards outside in the cool evening. All of us. Meanwhile, families came in from outside the hospital to take photos beside the well-illuminated crib.
We don’t have weasel “woke” anti-faith agendas in Hyderabad. We all know what we all believe. We all respect what we believe. We all share the happiness of everyone’s celebrations.
Australia, why not “come on down” to Pakistan to know what religious harmony can really be. Forget about Canberra.
(Sadly, there is the hard constant memory in Pakistan that on 16 December 2014, Muslim terrorists attacked a school in Peshawar and killed 149 Muslim people including 132 Muslim school children. The horror of the bloody Bondi terrorist attack on Jewish Australians is shared by good ordinary Pakistani people).
Columban Fr Robert McCulloch
(“Sitara-i-Quaid-i-Azam” 2012)
St Elizabeth Hospital
Hyderabad, Pakistan
