Talk:Placide Cappeau

Placide Cappeau - an atheist?

I'm surprised that there is no mention that Placide Cappeau was an atheist and anti-cleric according to many seemingly reliable sources on line:

https://hymnary.org/person/Cappeau_P " A parish priest, Father Petitjean, in Cappeau's community, asked him to write a Christmas poem to celebrate the renovation of their organ, and he agreed to do it, despite being an avowed atheist and vocal anti-cleric. He researched the book of Luke and wrote the lyrics to “O Holy night”. An opera singer, Emily Laurie, saw the text and asked a Jewish friend of hers to compose music for it, which he, remarkably, did. She sung it at a midnight mass three weeks later, and parishioners raved, but when Catholic church leaders found out it was written by an atheist, they banned it."

https://christiantoday.com.au/news/four-things-you-didnt-know-about-o-holy-night.html "According to the book Stories of Best Loved Christmas Songs the original text of O Holy Night was written in 1847 by a French poet named Placide Cappeau. After being approached by the local priest Cappeau was commissioned to write a poem in celebration of the church's new organ. The Priest's request may have come as a surprise for Cappeau, who was not considered a godly man, but he obliged. ... When Church leaders discovered that Cappeau had formally renounced the Church to join a Socialist movement, and that the song's composer was Jewish they took it off the playlist."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/french-atheist-american-abolitionist-ended-045438087.html How a French Atheist and an American Abolitionist Ended Up Creating a Christmas Classic

Unless an editor can show that this story is false, I will add this information. Kooky2 (talk) 08:39, 5 December 2022 (UTC)