THE Vatican yesterday denounced a ruling by the European court of human rights that said the display of crucifixes in Italian public schools violates religious and education freedoms.
In a decision that could force a review of the use of religious symbols in government-run schools across Europe, the court ordered Italy to pay compensation of 5,000 Euros to a mother in northern Italy who fought for eight years to have crucifixes removed from her children’s public school classrooms. The Italian government said it would appeal.
- A crucifix on a classroom wall in Rome. Photograph: Tony Gentile/Reuters
In its ruling, the court said the presence of the crucifix:
Could easily be interpreted by pupils of all ages as a religious sign and they would feel that they were being educated in a school environment bearing the stamp of a given religion.
It added that the presence of such symbols could be:
Disturbing for pupils who practiced other religions or were atheists
According to this report, Vatican spokesman the Rev Federico Lombardi said the crucifix was a fundamental sign of the importance of religious values in Italian history and culture and was a symbol of unity and welcoming for all of humanity — not one of exclusion.
He said a European court had no right intervening in such a profoundly Italian matter and added:
It seems as if the court wanted to ignore the role of Christianity in forming Europe’s identity, which was and remains essential. Religion gives a precious contribution to the formation and moral growth of people, and it’s an essential component in our civilisation. It’s wrong and myopic to try to exclude it from education.
Crucifixes are common in Italian public schools as well as courtrooms. Occasionally, legal cases arise; in one well-known case, a Muslim activist filed suit challenging the legality of the crucifixes in his son’s elementary school in Ofena, about 145 kilometers (90 miles) east of Rome.
Though he eventually lost, the case was an early shot in what has become a battle in Europe about whether there should be any religious symbols at all in European classrooms and other public places. More recently in Italy, a judge who refused to hold hearings because there were crufixes in his courtroom, was ordered to stand trial for having failed to perform his official duties.
The Strasbourg-based court said the crucifix could be disturbing to non-Christian or atheist pupils, rejecting arguments by Italy’s government that it was a national symbol of culture, history, identity, tolerance and secularism.
The court said secular, state-run schools where attendance is compulsory must:
Observe confessional neutrality in the context of public education.
But while it fined the government, the seven-judge panel stopped short of ordering Italy to remove the crucifixes, which are common in Italian public schools. The ruling can still be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights’ Grand Chamber of 17 judges, whose decisions are binding.
The case was brought by Soile Lautsi, a mother of two who claimed public schools in her northern Italian town refused eight years ago to remove the Roman Catholic symbols from classrooms. She had maintained that the crucifix violates the secular principles the public schools are supposed to uphold, and the right to offer her children a secular education.
She filed her case with the European Court of Human Rights in July 2006, after Italy’s Constitutional Court dismissed her complaint. Her efforts to rid public schools of religious symbols in a country that is predominantly Roman Catholic had not been welcomed.
Lautsi, who is of Finnish origins, and her husband, Massimo Albertin, are pleased with the decision. Said Albertin:
We believe the ruling is a positive signal from Europe to Italy, which seems to increasingly lose its secularism. The crucifix creates discrimination.
Still, the government maintained the crucifix is a symbol of Italian and European history and tradition. Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said:
In our country nobody wants to impose the Catholic religion, let alone with a crucifix.
But she added that:
It is not by eliminating the traditions of individual countries that a united Europe is built.
Italian bishops said they were perplexed by the decision.
The Italian Bishop’s Conference said in a statement:
The multiple significance of the crucifix, which is not just a religious symbol but a cultural sign, has been either ignored or overlooked.
Hat Tip: BarrieJohn and PaulEd
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
November 4th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Even as an atheist, I have nothing against religious symbols anywhere and nothing against two pieces of wood nailed together at right angles.
However, I do have something against crosses with tortured humans nailed to them. Like much of the RC church’s literature, it is not suitable for children.
Question: Will the religious symbol ban extend to turbans, hijabs and sacrificial knives – or will personal crosses be permitted?
November 4th, 2009 at 11:30 am
I agree with gsw in essence. However, a caring parent could use the crucifix to open a discussion on the silliness of all religions. In catholic countries and in catholic parts of “mixed” countries, such as Germany, one is frequently confronted by life-size crucifixes. Anybody who has visited the beauty spots of Italy or Spain will be familiar with the roadside crucifixes erected to a “loved one” who has died there.
Unfortunately this custom is also growing in this country. I live near a road that has been dubbed “road of death” in recent years. On a stretch of abt. a quarter mile there are four or five memorials. Most of them are fairly plain, but one has several one foot high Jesus and Madonna statues and even an “eternal light”. This shrine is dedicated to two young people, a youth and his girl-friend, who died when the youth, high on drugs, crashed his car. Fortunately no other car was involved on that occasion.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Nice the douchebag’s tactics are coming back to bite them on the ass. They always want to claim little Mindy and Biff will be traumatized if they hear the word “gay” in school. Let them deal with others who claim the sight of a dead guy nailed to a hunk of wood gives them the heebie-jeebies.
The multiple significance of the crucifix, which is not just a religious symbol but a cultural sign, has been either ignored or overlooked.
Yeah, they always want to claim it’s a cultural/secular thing when it suits them (like when they want to keep it on public property on the taxpayer’s dime). Then they’ll whine that it’s a “sacred object” whenever they feel it will bolster a claim of persecution. Always they want to have it both ways.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
The Catholic Church’s role in creating the European identity is more in our rejection of its retrospective oppression than any positive effects it may have provided.
Seems to me that the Catholic Church would happily ignore the role played by ancient Greek rationalism, democracy and secularism in the formation of the European identity.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
According to Justice Scalia, the cross is not a religious symbol. I wonder if the addition of Jesus hanging there makes it so?
November 4th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I, and I’m certain many others agree, that religion and all the paraphernalia that goes with it should remain a private matter, something one does in one’s home or church. Religion should have no part in public life or indeed public institutions because the State should not appear to favour one religion above another. The suggestion that any religion is cultural – whatever that is supposed to mean – is a red herring and bluff just to elevate religion’s status.
Personally, I find all public displays of religious icons distasteful and a reminder of just how far behind some members of the human race still remain. The dead-jew-on-stick thing is quite revolting to the point of offensive; the crucifix is an instrument of torture just like shackles, the rack and branding irons – all tools used with relish by the catholic church.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Religion gives a precious contribution to the formation and moral growth of people, and it’s an essential component in our civilisation.
Here we go again hijacking morality as though non-beleivers don’t know how to behave in the world and to me civilisation and the word religion don’t seem to go hand in hand somehow. I was raised catholic and from a very early age hated all those crucifixes in school so much so I was often sent to the heads study to await my punishment for taking the proverbial out of one thing or another and when I got there I had to wait underneath a f***ing big cross.I can remember it like yesterday,scarred for life!
November 4th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
How right you are, Angela-K, when you write: “The suggestion that any religion is cultural – whatever that is supposed to mean – is a red herring and bluff just to elevate religion’s status.”.
Likewise for those who regard themselves as “Jewish atheists”, “Christian atheists”, etc., by having one believe that it is possible to be atheist by world-view while remaining “culturally” Jewish, Christian, etc., whatever that is supposed to mean.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
The Vatican doesn’t like this, the Vatican doesn’t like that. Meanwhile the Vatican does like hiding priests who are paedophiles, stopping women use contraceptives when the world is already choking with over population, insists a raped women should have a child in preference to an abortion and, recently, is trying to attract the weirder types from the C. of E.
November 4th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Just a thought, could we get Mel Gibson to design the crucifixes to make them a bit more realistic? That way everyone would be made aware of just how revolting they are.
I also agree with Angela_K that public spaces should be neutral with reference to religion, you don’t get to stick your icons in other people’s faces but the same rule protects you from having their icons stuck in your face. In a multi-faith society you would think that this would be obvious, but just look at the trouble that they get in the US from idiot Christians who just don’t get it.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Unfortunately this custom is also growing in this country. I live near a road that has been dubbed “road of death” in recent years
Even as an atheist I have No problem with that. Those crosses legitimately represent the *personal* beliefs of the accident victims and are appropriate as a personal memorial (and perhaps a safety reminder).
Crosses in a class or court room are very different, however because they represent the governing authority. In that sense the school or court is telling us that we are not fully part of their system.
November 4th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Why are religious people so dishonest? The crucifix is a specifically Christian symbol. It’s religious. Let them defend it honestly or shut up.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Xtians like any religion wants tolerance because WE are important to the history/growth/etc of this region. They where instrumental in history alright because of the terror they spread thru the middle ages through the witch burning/inquisitions/crusades. Ya they were some influence!!!! Strange how the church moved toward charity and hospitals only after the secular enlightenment pushed that way.
But sure put in the cross in schools because it was influential but so were the jews and moslems so hang their symbols as well!!!! That would really piss of the Xtians.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:52 am
I live in Canada and we have a really quaint custom, particularly in Quebec. People get an old bath tub and bury the tap end in the ground. They then place a statue of the virgin Mary in the bath.
There are dozens of these beside the roads in Quebec and I assume that the symbol of Mary taking a bath has something to do with cleanliness being next to godliness but I can’t be sure.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:57 am
The cricifix is not the right symbol for Christians because Jesus is no longer on the cross. He rose again from the dead. A plain cross will do.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:02 am
I’m Italian, and crucifixes in public places are part of the landscape, so to speak. I agree with the european Court decision, although I don’t see how a crucifix in a public office (say a post office) offends my freedom. Religious symbols in school are another story, and can foster indoctrination.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Guten, he rose again from the dead! You believe in zombies. Can you provide evidence to support your claim that this actually happened? No you cannot because there is none.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Angela K: I would suggest you read “Evidence for the resurrection” by Sir Norman Anderson.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Chris Hobbs.
I had a google of the bathtub virgin and true enough it’s there.Maybe somebody could put the bath the other way up and rig up a water feature using the taps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_madonna
November 5th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Oh Angela, stop being such a skepchick! I have followed Guten’s advice and looked up Anderson’s “Evidence for the Resurrection” – and it is faultless!
Sample: “Let us assume that the resurrection of an ordinary man is indeed incredible. But such a line of reasoning cannot apply to the One whom we are considering. He was unique in all He did; in all He said; in all He was. Whichever way one looks at Him, He is in a class by Himself. Even apart from the resurrection, there are excellent and convincing reasons for believing that He was ‘God manifest in the flesh’. Is it, then, so incredible that such a One should rise from the dead? It would have been far more incredible if He had not. It is, indeed, the profoundest of mysteries that He should ever have died ‘for us men and for our salvation’: but, having died, it is no mystery that He should have risen.”
If this nugget of impeccable scholarship and reasoning does not convince you, then read more here:
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.....erson.html
November 5th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Thanks Barry. I’ve just read part way through the material provided by your link but as it was such nonsense, I was starting to lose the will to live. It seems a shame the author wasted his time with circular arguments and using a dodgy book as reference. For the benefit of others, the end piece is priceless: “But the ultimate proof of the resurrection for each individual lies in his own knowledge of the risen Christ, for in this matter the evidence of experience can supplement that of history.
I have yet to see evidence that can be verified; the testimony of some characters – some of whom are fictional – is meaningless.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Guten made a smart move in hiding behind a pseudonym. While he revealed to the 4,000 people who will read his comment before it becomes yesterday’s news, that someone called “Guten” is as dangerously, criminally, certifiably braindead as the kindergarten dropout whose doubletalk he takes seriously, he also made sure that persons who know him by his real name will not associate him with the raving lunatic called Guten who thinks that Alice in Wonderland is nonfiction. Just the same, he should be wary of posting his verbal diarrhea online, in case Nurse Ratched finds out what he is doing and stops lending him her crayons.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
The signs were all there for Guten: “a plain cross will do” – most kind, and thank you. Once you get that whiny certainty you know you are dealing with a serious off the wall nutter.
“I would suggest” – that “would” is just so achingly pompous and flatulent. There is a sub text of “I am such an expert that I do not want to skewer you with my encyclopoedic knowledge so I will let you learn with a gentle start.”
“Evidence” – this usually means something either hysterically funny, diabolically dishonest or so clinically paranoid that the words “he really does need sectioning” must be heard soon.
“Sir”: this, dear reader, in the class ridden UK is often taken as the clincher. The masses bend the knee to this one. If he has a title then examine no further because it must be true. But not in this parish, Guten, and “Sir” seems even nuttier than yourself and that is setting some standard.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
gsw@ #1 captured my sentiments exactly. Constant exposure to torture is not good for children. (maybe the virgin-in-a-tub shrines are a tribute to waterboarding?)
As a kind of nature-worshipping pagan, I’m inclined to put up a graphic representation of a vagina, you know, source of life and all that. I feel it would be much better for children to be exposed to than people being tortured. I wonder how the catholics would react. Call it obscene? Like the Vatican’s statues?
November 5th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Uzza. As a bit of a nature worshipper myself I like the vagina idea. Round my edge of the known world there are lots of vagina like shapes in the forests on the trunks of trees. Often holes, sometimes with moisture in them, and with labia type circles round the edge. An idea of genius. Patent the idea before someone else steals it.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
see my review of “Evidence for the Resurrection” (a 28-page pamphlet) at http://www.amazon.ca
November 6th, 2009 at 8:22 am
The display of a Crucifix reminds everyone, not just Christians of how Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ temporarily died for all of us.
The showing of a Medieval torture device is a recognized symbol of christian kindness and tolerance.
This now means Christians are denied the right to practice one of the most basic aspects of our faith, which is to impose it on everyone else at every opportunity.
November 6th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
William, I have good reason to believe that the creature calling itself Guten is none other that the pitiful little creep Bob Hutton,who just cannot stay away from this blog. I assure you I will do my level best to stop this vermin from leaving its droppings on this site again.