Published on Dec 20, 2013 on YouTube:
Parents' outrage after teachers cut references to Jesus Christ out of school choir's rendition of 'Silent Night'
(Gadailynews) Parents are in one New York school district are furious after teachers removed references to Jesus Christ from 'Silent Night' - a song about the birth of the Jesus Christ.
The head-scratching decision by officials at Ralph J. Osgood Intermediate School on Long Island, New York, changed the 200-year-old Christmas carol to cut out the lines 'round yon virgin, mother and child,' 'Christ the Savior is born' and 'holy infant.'
The resulting version of the song is hacked apart and nearly unrecognizable to anyone who knows the original version.
Kings Park Central School District Board of Education issued an apology Thursday after a video surfaced of the revised 'Silent Night.'
'This action was not approved by the Board of Education or district administration, nor is it their role to approve the songs chosen for our concerts,' the board told NBC New York in a statement.
The lyrics for the song performed by the song go: 'Silent night, Holy night/All is calm, all is bright/
'Glory streams from heaven afar/Heavenly, hosts sings Hallelujah/
'Sleep in heavenly peace/Sleep in heavenly peace.'
Every reference to Jesus Christ has been scrubbed from the performance.
'I'm not too happy with that, it's kind of insulting,' parent Robert Dowd told WCBS-AM.
'Silent Night,' originally written in German 'Stille Nacht,' was composed by Joseph Mohr and first performed in 1818 in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria.
It was first translated to English in 1859 and was famously sung together in World War I by German, French and English troops during the Christmas Truce of 1914.
(Gadailynews) Parents are in one New York school district are furious after teachers removed references to Jesus Christ from 'Silent Night' - a song about the birth of the Jesus Christ.
The head-scratching decision by officials at Ralph J. Osgood Intermediate School on Long Island, New York, changed the 200-year-old Christmas carol to cut out the lines 'round yon virgin, mother and child,' 'Christ the Savior is born' and 'holy infant.'
The resulting version of the song is hacked apart and nearly unrecognizable to anyone who knows the original version.
Kings Park Central School District Board of Education issued an apology Thursday after a video surfaced of the revised 'Silent Night.'
'This action was not approved by the Board of Education or district administration, nor is it their role to approve the songs chosen for our concerts,' the board told NBC New York in a statement.
The lyrics for the song performed by the song go: 'Silent night, Holy night/All is calm, all is bright/
'Glory streams from heaven afar/Heavenly, hosts sings Hallelujah/
'Sleep in heavenly peace/Sleep in heavenly peace.'
Every reference to Jesus Christ has been scrubbed from the performance.
'I'm not too happy with that, it's kind of insulting,' parent Robert Dowd told WCBS-AM.
'Silent Night,' originally written in German 'Stille Nacht,' was composed by Joseph Mohr and first performed in 1818 in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria.
It was first translated to English in 1859 and was famously sung together in World War I by German, French and English troops during the Christmas Truce of 1914.
