The Pope also said the notion of animals in the stable were latter-day additions to the nativity scene.

BBC: Quiz of the week's news

O'Connor agreed with the majority in a 1984 case that a city-sponsored nativity scene did not violate the constitutional ban on government endorsement of religion.

CNN: A sensible justice

Local raw materials--say, olive wood from the West Bank for a Nativity scene or wool from alpacas raised in the Andes foothills for a knit hat--are favored.

FORBES: Creative Giving

"We've got two trains going into a tunnel, a moving ski-slope which was hand-built, a church and nativity scene, " said Ms Hales, who helps decorate her partner's parents' bungalow.

BBC: Suffolk houses shine with Christmas lights for charity

But he told the court many visitors were not happy with the promised snow-covered log cabins, a nativity scene, husky dogs, polar bears and other animals, as well as a bustling Christmas market.

BBC: New Forest Lapland park owners 'could have made ?1m'

So if one atheist or attention-grabbing student in a public school is offended by a prayer, the Ten Commandments or a nativity scene on school property, liberals demand that the offending object must go.

FORBES: Contraceptive Coverage: One More Unconstitutional Mandate

Loss adjustors have already visited the church to survey the shattered stained glass window depicting a nativity scene, a broken 17th Century wooden pulpit, a dented lectern and, most importantly, a smashed Victorian frieze behind the altar.

BBC: Prayers said at damaged abbey

But while the book points out that the Gospels do not support the presence of animals at Jesus' birth -- a detail apparently added in later centuries -- the pope does not suggest they should be thrown out of the Nativity scene, Speciale said.

CNN: Pope's book on Jesus challenges Christmas traditions

So the traditional outdoor Nativity scene unveiled on Christmas Eve next to a giant illuminated Christmas tree in St Peter's Square has been paid for not by the Holy See but by the taxpayers of one of Italy's poorest regions, Basilicata, in the heel of Italy.

BBC: A cut-price crib for the Vatican