An excess of “political correctness” led to all the main Christian celebrations, Easter, Christmas, Holy Week and Boxing Day, being eliminated from the calendar prepared by the “UCE Birmingham” University for 2006. Their place was taken by a laconic note “National Holiday. University closed”. Yet, “by an inexplicable decision”, the most important religious festivities of the other faiths, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism, have remained on the calendar. According to a spokesman of the university, the omission of the Christian holidays was an oversight, but Peter Jennings, spokesman of the Catholic Bishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols, declared: “A calendar that contains the various religious festivities is a good idea. But I am disappointed that important Christian solemnities like Easter and Christmas, should have been left out without anyone realising the fact”. To tell the truth, the publication of the calendar has irritated many staff of the university and Christian religious leaders that considered it discriminatory towards Christianity. Complaints from Christians received support from Birmingham’s only Moslem MP, Khalid Mahmood, who declared: “We are trying to build a multifaith and multicultural society and that’s not possible if we exclude this country’s most important religions”. The apologies of the University were prompt: it has decided to reprint and distribute the calendar with the Christian festivities re-instated.
