In the Vatican, even the Christmas tree can be a lightning rod

ROME – One might think that of all the things about the Vatican which generate controversy, its annual Christmas tree ought to be fairly near the bottom of the list. In fact, even the tree occasionally has been a lightning rod since 1982, when installing a tree for the holidays in St. Peter’s Square first became an annual tradition.

In 1999, for example, a riot broke out on the Via della Conciliazione, with helmeted police firing tear gas at protestors slinging rocks. The crowd, led by young Italian leftists, was incensed because that year’s tree was being donated by the Austrian province of Carinthia, whose governor was the firebrand politician Jörg Haider, leader of the country’s far right “Freedom Party” and a figure who sometimes appeared nostalgic for the Nazi era.

Once again this year, a polemic is brewing around the tree, though it seems unlikely to produce the same street violence as Christmas 1999 – which, just like this Christmas, also marked the opening of a Jubilee Year.

This time, it’s the northern Italian region of Trentino which has the honor. Plans currently call for 40 fir trees to transported from the region’s forests of Val di Ledro to Rome, including one 100-foot-tall fir that’s believed to be about two centuries old, and which is known locally as the “Green Giant.”

The prospect of chopping down a tree that’s considered a local landmark has some residents up in arms. Roughly 40,000 people have signed a petition to stop the Green Giant from being cut down, slamming the entire exercise of putting up Christmas trees as an “anachronistic outrage,” and one which has roots in Pagan winter rituals rather than Christianity anyway.

The petition, addressed to Pope Francis, cites his 2015 encyclical Laudato si’, the first papal encyclical ever to be devoted entirely to the environment. The petition warns that once ancient trees are removed they’re gone forever, and pleaded with the pope to prevent “this useless massacre.”

“In an historic moment, when climate change is evolving rapidly, it is necessary to give clear and transparent signals to change the approach towards respecting nature,” it reads. It also calls on people to shun what it calls “the purely consumerist practice of using living trees for ephemeral ends, for mere advertising purposes and a few ridiculous selfies.”

The petition also says the estimated $64,000 cost of the exercise could be better spent on “the common good.”

All that, however, is strenuously disputed by Mayor Renato Girardi of Ledro, the community from which the trees are destined to come. Girardi has called the protests “nonsense” and “baseless nastiness.”

First of all, he said, the “Green Giant” was set to be cut down anyway, as part of a lot of old-growth trees to be culled during routine forest maintenance in keeping with European Union guidelines. If it weren’t going to the Vatican he, quipped, it would be heading to the sawmill.

For the other 39 trees, he said they’re not really from Trentino anyway. They’re being purchased from specialized nurseries, because the Vatican requested a special variety of fir tree that doesn’t lose its needles – otherwise, imagine the clean-up operation in St. Peter’s Square – and that particular variety isn’t indigenous to the region.

In any event, Girardi said the community is moving ahead with its plans despite the backlash. He said the trees will be loaded on trucks to begin their trek to Rome the night of Nov. 18. Roads will be closed to allow the convoy to pass, and he’s invited local residents to grab their smart phones and cameras and head to their balconies and terraces to capture the moment.

“The whole world will talk about the tree in the Vatican that comes from our precious woods,” a communique announcing the initiative said. “The valley is aware of this extraordinary occasion and this extraordinary honor.”

Later, Dec. 6-8, a delegation of 600 people from Ledro will travel to the Vatican to watch the official lighting ceremony for the trees – unless, of course, the petition succeeds in persuading Pope Francis and his Vatican team to change their minds.