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Crucifix row hits Italian schools
ROME, Italy (AP) -- A court ruling has banned the crucifix from one school in Italy, setting off controversy in the secular but culturally Catholic nation. The debate highlighted Italy's sometimes awkward relationship with its growing immigrant population, whose presence belies the notion of Italians as solely Christian and ethnically European. The court ruling came Saturday after an Islamic activist protested that his two boys had to study with a crucifix at their elementary school in the small town of Ofena, 125 kilometers (90 miles) northeast of Rome. Judge Mario Montanaro's ruling stated that "the presence of the crucifix in classrooms communicates an implicit adherence to values that in reality are not the shared heritage of all citizens." Some Italians saw the ruling not as an effort to enforce secularism but as a disturbing sign of religious extremism -- a defeat for Christian faith in the very country that houses the Vatican. "You can't chase crosses out of schools," said Monsignor Giuseppe Betori of the Italian Bishops Conference. "The overwhelming majority of Italians want them, and consider them the strongest expression of the cultural roots of their civilization." The Italian Constitution says the state and the Catholic Church are each "independent and sovereign," and that "all religious faiths are equally free before the law." However, a 1923 law also says that schools must display the crucifix. The Education Ministry argued that the 1923 law is still in effect, and it had no plans to apply the court ruling in Italian schools, news reports said. Changing societyLegal experts also questioned the ruling. "I consider this sentence deeply flawed," Augusto Barbera, editor of a journal on constitutional law, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper in an interview published Sunday. "There are laws in effect on this issue. A judge cannot ignore them." The issue may be gaining such attention because Italy has only recently begun to acknowledge large non-Christian groups in its society. This country of 57 million people has about 1.2 million legal immigrants, with thousands more arriving illegally every year. One estimate says there are now 800,000 Muslims in Italy. Furthermore, immigrants are likely to make up a greater part of this nation in the future. Italy has a declining birth rate and an aging population, and business leaders say the country must bring in more newcomers if it hopes to keep its economy going. Italy is not the only European nation trying to deal with a changing society. France has been embroiled in a growing controversy over whether the Islamic headscarf can be worn in public schools or by civil servants. In Germany, a Muslim schoolteacher was blocked from employment because she wears a headscarf. Her case went to the nation's highest court, but an inconclusive ruling this year only spurred debate. And the European Union is battling over whether a new constitution should include explicit reference to God and Judeo-Christian values as a vital part of European heritage. For the time being, no crucifixes have been removed from the Ofena school. Local education board official Nino Santilli said he hadn't received an official order, and he had no plans to take down the crosses yet. "It's more than 2,000 years that our people and our country have gravitated around the culture of Christianity and the crucifix," Santilli said. "And that goes for nonbelievers too." Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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