Like so many before and after him, the old immigrant came to America for a better life. He also came for religious freedom, or, in his case, freedom from religion.

He was born on a farm in Portugal at the turn of the 20th century. It was a land rich in grapes and fishermen, poor in jobs or prospects for a bright future.

When he was 22, he went to Lisbon and stowed away on a steamer crammed with commercial goods and scared, sweaty men with dreams of a better life in America.

The ship docked in Caracas, Venezuela, and the immigrant made his way north, first to Cuba, then to a small Portuguese community in New Jersey. He found a job shoveling ashes on the railroad, made friends, and met a woman who taught him English and became his wife.

He was born a Catholic to a career army man and a sturdy housewife and farm worker with the sad face and dark clothes worn by the women of that time and place.

He’d gone to Catholic school, tasted the stern discipline of priests and nuns – to his dying day his hands bore little round scars from beatings with a wooden ruler with holes drilled in a quarter inch apart – and wanted to get far away.

He believed in God, not in religion. He read the Bible all his life, but thought of it as simply a collection of good instructional stories not intended to be taken literally.

The English teacher he married was Jewish and he agreed to allow her to raise any children they might have as Jews, though he never embraced that religion, either.

His distaste for organized religion was so great that he often told his son: “The only time you will see me in a synagogue is at your bar mitzvah. The only time you will see me in church is at my funeral.”

He was as good as his word. Later in life, when friends passed away, he would go to the wake in a funeral home. Often he would pass by the church at the time of the Mass for his friend, but he never went in. Sometimes he stopped to sit on the steps for a moment; other times he simply slowed down as he passed.

He always paid his last respects; he just did it his way. As he grew older, he told his son: “When I die, just call Father Mike at St. Mary’s and he’ll take care of everything.”

The son was surprised the old immigrant would want a Christian burial.

“I was born into the church and I’ll die into the church,” the old man said. “But that’s it.” When the day finally came, Father Mike, the old immigrant’s fishing buddy who just happened to be a priest, did his duty.

All of this comes to mind in the holiday season, when the usual hues and cries come up concerning the rituals of placing menorahs, Christmas trees, and Nativity scenes on public property.

Some make it an issue of freedom of expression; some make it an issue of church/state separation, and others say the right to freedom of religion means they have the right to be free from seeing any religious symbols.

Atheists contend anything connected with religion should be banned, while true believers get upset when religious symbols are merely part of a larger, more generalized holiday exhibit.

And there are the religious leaders who get offended when someone puts up a scene they feel is sacrilegious.

These days, Catholic, Presbyterian, and Anglican leaders are up in arms over a Nativity scene in a wax museum in London that depicts soccer star David Beckham as Joseph and his wife, Victoria, the artist formerly known as Posh Spice, as Mary. A Vatican official told the Reuters news agency: “This is worse than bad taste. It is cheap.” Be that as it may, it is also part of the equation of freedom of expression.

The old immigrant always shrugged when these issues were raised in a newspaper or on the TV news. He never paid any attention to any of the sides of the argument.

“This is a free country,” he would say. “People can practice whatever religion they want – or none at all. There’s no reason you can’t put up a menorah or the baby Jesus, just as along as they are all represented.

“If you don’t like it, don’t look; just walk by. Just because the holidays are rooted in religion, doesn’t mean you have to take them strictly that way. Just enjoy them.”

Happy holidays.