Instead of the silver fir from a forest area under EU protection, which the municipality of Rosello in the Apennine region of Abruzzo wanted to give away, the Pope will receive one from a tree nursery. The fir tree felled for the Vatican is “only” 62 years old and 26 meters high. The tree has to be felled anyway because it grew too close to a building. “No tree is taken from a protected forest,” assured a spokesman for the Abruzzo region.
The silver fir, originally destined for the Pope, is 32 meters tall and is considered a rare species. After the environmentalists alerted the forest administration, it was decided to suspend felling because it is a tree species that is subject to strict environmental regulations. as reported by Italian media.
It’s not the first time that the Christmas tree that adorns St. Peter’s Square has been at the center of a controversy. In 1989, when John Paul II was Pope, Austrian environmentalists protested against the felling of a 32 meter tall spruce in Kopfing (Schärding district) to decorate St. Peter’s Square that year. Despite protests from the Nature Conservation Union, the spruce was sent on a semitrailer to Rome. In 2006, during Joseph Ratzinger’s pontificate, the WWF made an appeal to the southern Italian region of Calabria, which donated the fir tree for St. Peter’s Square that year.
The traditional consecration of the nativity scene and the lighting of the Christmas tree takes place on December 3rd in St. Peter’s Square. The ceremony will be presided over by Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, President of the Vatican Governorate.
Source: Nachrichten
