Is December 25 Jesus’ birthday?

The Catholic Church does not have a specific teaching on when Jesus was born. There may be a “memory” of the early Christians being preserved in this date, or its significance is only symbolic. After Christianization of the empire, the Church often replaced pagan things (e.g. temples) with Christian ones (churches). Scholars disagree on the merit of such arguments in this particular case, however. For example, in his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, writing as a theologian and not as pope, Pope Benedict XVI wrote,

The claim used to be made that December 25 developed in opposition to the Mithras myth, or as a Christian response to the cult of the unconquered sun promoted by Roman emperors in the third century in their efforts to establish a new imperial religion. However, these old theories can no longer be sustained.

SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION