Every town and community in Spain has its Belén, its Christmas crib, whether grand or modest. These are often works of art and ingenuity, with their moving figures, waterwheels turning, water streaming, and every clever device you can imagine. The best of them are shown every year in exhibitions throughout the peninsula. Many places, like Pezuela de las Torres in the Community of Madrid, are famous for offering a richly colourful live crib scene with local people as the essential figures.
The essence of the Belén is to capture the life of the village, or pueblo, the simple working background into which the child Jesus was born. The shepherds, the farmworkers, the harvesters, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the baker, are all a part of this charming and detailed display, including the domestic animals which are so central to the village way of life. Along with the arrival of the Tres Reyes, the three kings, this simple representation of the event of Christmas, is probably what most survives of the original meaning of the festival in the popular culture.
Now Pope Benedict, in a moment of bizarre intellectual hair-splitting, has announced in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, that the homely myth of the stable, with the donkey or mule, and the ox, those emblematic presences which give colour and life to our carols, is without historical foundation. There was no donkey, he says, there were no oxen standing by.
At least, this one detail is what has reached the general public, arguably through media misrepresentation of the Pope's thesis, while it is clear that his text acknowledges the presence of the animals in the crib tradition.
Still, the grassroots protest in Spain against the reporting of the Pope's words, which figured prominently in the national news, had to be heard to be believed. For days, the topic dominated conversation in the street. Every bar, restaurant or public place with a tradition of mounting the crib, insisted with fervour that they would not change their ways in spite of the papal view. The universal response, with typical Spanish forthrightness, was, "Well, I'm blowed if I'm taking the donkey away ..."
The point of real interest here is the popular response to what might, in another age, have been shown more respect. On such minor disputes do great schisms feed. And I truly wonder where this will all end....
CJM, Spain, December 23, 2012
