If you thought the Canadian Human Rights Commission came up with some ridiculous ideas, just look at the European Court of Human Rights. They have said that the display of crucifixes in Italian public schools violates religious and education freedoms in the heart of European Catholicism. The response from the Catholic Church in Rome has been swift and angry. The reason for the ruling:
The ruling could force a review of the use of religious symbols in government-run schools across Europe. Saying the crucifix could be disturbing to non-Christian or atheist pupils, the court in Strasbourg rejected arguments by Italy’s government that it was a national symbol of culture, history, identity, tolerance and secularism. The Italian government immediately said it would appeal, with one minister saying the court should be ashamed and a conservative senator calling the ruling “absurd”.
Italian bishops said they were perplexed by the ruling. “The multiple significance of the crucifix, which is not just a religious symbol but a cultural sign, has been either ignored or overlooked,” the Italian Bishops Conference said.
I have to agree with the church on this one. The crucifix, while a symbol for Christianity, is also evocative of two thousand years of European culture and history, and it would be ridiculous to ignore this aspect when making decisions about removing the cross from schools. Indeed, what often united the fratricidal fiefdoms throughout Europe’s bloody history, was their link to Christianity. The celebration of Christian calender events, cultural festivals, and observation of holy days are all commonly shared within the European continent.
It’s more surprising because it’s happening in Italy, the country which hosts the Vatican in Rome which has guided Catholic theology and culture since the first century. One can only imagine the reaction in Mecca to the Saudi Arabian Human Rights Court decreeing the Islamic Crescent as violating religious freedoms.
November 4, 2009 at 1:56 am
[...] ‘It’s more surprising because it’s happening in Italy, the country which hosts the Vatican in Rome which has guided Catholic theology and culture since the first century. One can only imagine the reaction in Mecca to the Saudi Arabian Human Rights Court decreeing the Islamic Crescent as violating religious freedoms’ says this blog. [...]
November 4, 2009 at 4:24 am
I have to say I’m mystified by this article. Because the finding was made not in Italy and not by any Italian court, but rather by a transnational European entity, the Italian connection is of zero significance (yes, seriously!), the confection of a hypothetical finding by what I can only think is an imaginary “Saudi Arabian Human Rights Court” as applied to Mecca is a straw man that contributes nothing to reasoned analysis of this quite different circumstance, and the breathless headline is misleading as well as simply silly. This might have been “more surprising [than what?] for having happened in Italy” if it hadn’t happened in Strasbourg.
What could the author possibly mean by hailing Christianity for having “…united the fratricidal fiefdoms throughout Europe’s bloody history?” Being united is, I should think, quite incompatible with bloody fratricide, and arguably its opposite. Is European history not in fact replete with bloody fratricidal battles over what precise sort of Christianity was the one true path, deserving of official sanction?
I write from the United States, where Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state has redounded to the benefit of both institutions. Our heterogeneous population lacks a single religious heritage to unite us, yet we have avoided the habit of bloody fratricide with rather more success than our European friends, while religion flourishes here even as it withers in Western Europe.
November 4, 2009 at 6:36 am
“Saudi Arabian Human Rights Court”
Touche, nicely put.
Jonathan; you’ll have to forgive Italians for looking past the United States, whose constitutional laws have survived for less than 1/10 the length of European Christian Heritage. Poor juxtaposition.
November 4, 2009 at 7:19 am
I’m perplexed. What, exactly, does being offended by a symbol have to do with human rights?
November 4, 2009 at 4:54 pm
[...] from Raphael Alexander at Unambiguously Ambidextrous: Crucifixes Banned In Schools In Italy? No seriously, Italy? If you thought the Canadian Human Rights Commission came up with some ridiculous ideas, just look [...]
November 8, 2009 at 12:19 am
Potato
If you had to go into class with a swastika on the wall or a hammer and sickle would you make the same comment? It’s about a dominating ideology that brooks no question and demands obedience, no exceptions.
But really:
What I find amazing is that twice in two weeks leading catholics have denied that the cross is a christian symbol.
Scalia in the states and the men in frocks in Italy. Go on once more before the cock crows… I dare you.
December 17, 2009 at 6:52 am
The problem is the intolerance of Muslims. Give them the option: integrate into Europe (learn the languages and speak them, abandon Islam, dress properly, and fit in… give them 1 year or) kick them out. This is a blatant repeat of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe. In another 10 or 20 years we’ll be kicking ourselves in the ass as 200 million Europeans are slaughtered by Muslims as they prepare the way for Muslim Supremacy. Look at the history of Islam as it has conquerored it’s way from Persia west through Africa and east to India, and around the world.