National
From Corriere della Sera of
4th November 2009, you can read
Vatican Calls Order to Remove
Crosses from Classrooms “Short-sighted”
Request by Finnish-born Italian upheld.
MILAN – The presence of crucifixes
in classrooms constitutes “a violation of parents’ right to educate their
children according to conscience” and is a violation of “the pupils’ freedom of
religion”. The ruling came from the European court of human rights in
Strasbourg, upholding a
request presented by an Italian woman. A note from education minister Mariastella Gelmini announced
that “the government has presented an appeal against the sentence by the
European court of human rights in Strasbourg”.
If the court allows the appeal, the case will be reviewed by the grand chamber,
which has the task of pronouncing sentence on cases that raise serious
questions relating to the interpretation or application of the human rights
convention or protocols, or important issues of a general nature. If the
petition is rejected, the sentence will become final in three months, when the
Council of Europe’s committee of ministers will have to decide within six
months what action the Italian government will have to take to avoid further
sanctions. The Vatican
expressed “bewilderment and disappointment” at a “short-sighted and
wrong-headed ruling”. The Italian bishops’ conference (CEI) rejected the
sentence as a “partial, ideological view”.
PLAINTIFF – The woman who took the case to the Strasbourg court is Soile Lautsi Albertin,
an Italian citizen of Finnish origin. In 2002, she asked the Vittorino da Feltre
primary and middle school at Abano Terme in the province
of Padua, attended by her
two children, to remove the crucifixes from classrooms in accordance with the
principle of the secular state. School managers refused and Ms Lautsi’s appeals were turned down. In December 2004, the
Italian constitutional court rejected the appeal she presented to the
Veneto regional
administrative court (TAR). The case went back to the TAR, which in 2005 itself
rejected the appeal, maintaining that the crucifix is a symbol of Italian
history and culture, and so of the country’s identity and of the principles of
equality, liberty, tolerance and secularism of the state, a position confirmed
by Italy’s Council of State in 2006. But now, the tables have been turned. The
judges in Strasbourg,
to whom Ms Lautsi appealed in 2007, upheld her case,
also ruling that the Italian government must pay her 5,000 euros in moral
damages. It is the Strasbourg
court’s first ruling on religious symbols in school classrooms. “Now Italy will have
to take account of the sentence by the European court of human rights”,
commented Ms Lautsi and her husband.
SENTENCE – The sentence says: “The presence of the
crucifix, which it is impossible not to notice in school classrooms, could
easily be interpreted by students of all ages as a religious symbol. They would
thus be aware of being educated in a school environment bearing the mark of a
given religion”. The sentence continues that this “could be reassuring for
religious students but annoying for those who practice other religions,
especially if they belong to religious minorities or are atheists”. The court
“is unable to comprehend how the display in state school classrooms of a symbol
that can reasonably be associated with Catholicism can serve to further the
educational pluralism that is essential to conserve a democratic society as
envisaged by the European convention on human rights, a pluralism that is
acknowledged by the Italian constitutional court”. The seven judges who drafted
the sentence are Françoise Tulkens (Belgium, president), Vladimiro
Zagrebelsky (Italy),
Ireneu Cabral Barreto (Portugal), Danute Jociene (Lithuania),
Dragoljub Popovic (Serbia), Andras Sajò (Hungary)
and Karaka (Turkey).
VATICAN – The Vatican
regards the Strasbourg
court’s ruling as short-sighted and wrong-headed. The Holy See’s spokesman, Fr
Federico Lombardi, referred in a brief appearance on Vatican Radio and RAI TV’s
TG1 news bulletin to the “bewilderment and disappointment” with which the
ruling from the Council of Europe’s court was received in the Vatican. He
pointed out that “the crucifix has always been a sign of God’s love and of
union and acceptance for the whole of humanity. It is regrettable that it
should be considered a mark of division, exclusion or limitation of freedom. It
is not, nor is it such in the common feeling of our people”. He went on: “In
particular, it is serious that there should be a desire to exclude from the
world of education a fundamental sign of the importance of religious values in
Italian history and culture. Religion makes a valuable contribution to
education and moral growth, and is an essential element of our culture. It is
wrong-headed and short-sighted to exclude it from education”, he stressed,
adding: “It is astonishing that a European court should intervene so massively
in an issue very profoundly bound up with the historical, cultural and
spiritual identity of the Italian people. This is not the way to attract people
to love and share the European idea, which we as Italian Catholics have
strongly supported since its inception”.
COMMENTS – Many
reservations about the Strasbourg
court’s ruling were expressed on both sides of the political fence. The leader
of the Chamber of Deputies, Gianfranco Fini, said: “I
hope that the sentence will not be taken as a proper assertion of institutional
secularity, which is a very different value from the negation, typical of the
worst secularism, of the role of Christianity in Italian society and identity”.
For education
minister, Mariastella Gelmini
of the People of Freedom (PDL), “the presence of the crucifix in the classroom
does not signify adherence to Catholicism. It is a symbol of our tradition”.
The newly elected leader of the Democratic Party
(PD), Pierluigi Bersani,
also expressed doubts about the ruling. “I don’t think an ancient tradition
like the crucifix can be offensive to anyone”, said the PD secretary.
According to the minister for culture and PDL
coordinator Sandro Bondi,
“these decisions take us away from the idea of Europe
held by De Gasperi, Adenauer and Schuman. At this
rate, political failure is inevitable”.
For Pier Ferdinando Casini, leader of the Christian Democrat UDC, the sentence
“is the consequence of the timidity of Europe’s
rulers, who refused to mention Christian roots in the European constitution.
The crucifix is the sign of Italy’s
and Europe’s Christian identity”.
“I hope the
judgment is simply indicative, in other words that it should be seen in the
context of respect for religious beliefs", said Paola Binetti
(PD).
But Raffaele Carcano, national secretary of the Union
of atheists and rationalist agnostics, called it “a great day for Italian
secularism”.
“I applaud the
sentence. A secular state must respect the various religions but should not
identify itself with any of them”, said Communist Refoundation
secretary, Paolo Ferrero.
Massimo Donadi, the Italy of Values group leader in the Chamber of
Deputies, said: “The Strasbourg
sentence is not a good response to the demand for the secularism of the state,
which is however legitimate and reasonable”.
Adel Smith,
president of the union of Italian Muslims, was unrelenting: “Supporters of
crucifixes in the classroom should have expected this. In a state that calls itself
secular, you can’t oppress all other the faiths by displaying a symbol that
belongs to one confession”.
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