Father Christmas has been banned from visiting a children's nursery in Minnesota after a Muslim family complained. The Head Start Program in Minnesota stopped Father Christmas from delivering presents to children, so that one Somali family would not be offended.

Rael commented : “ This is an excellent move! Santa Claus should be banned everywhere as it teaches children to become liars”

Two years ago, Dino Bottino, parish priest of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Novara, Italy, met with a storm of criticism for telling children the truth about Father Christmas.

Rael expressed then his support for the clergyman’s disclosure and encouraged Raelians to counter the myth of Santa Claus as well.

“This Italian priest is absolutely right,” Rael commented. “Teaching children inventions like Father Christmas or Santa Claus only serves to mislead them. It’s giving them a bad education by showing that their own parents, who should be reliable and honest, are liars.”

Bottino told the press he considered it his duty to reveal that Father Christmas is nothing more than a fairy-tale figure comparable to Snow White, and that such fantasy figures have nothing to do with Jesus or the traditional Christian meaning of Christmas.

But Rael went further, saying that merry end-of-the-year celebrations existed thousands of years before Christianity even existed, and that their zest and vitality have been lost.  “People forget that the original celebrations at this time of year weren’t even Christian. Ancient Romans knew them as Saturnalia, wonderful pagan events at which people partied and had fun by dancing in the nude and really letting loose. So the early Catholic Church did all it could to make people feel guilty about enjoying themselves that way. It pre-empted the Saturnalia celebrations by Christianizing them.”