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.
said a European court had no right intervening in such a profoundly
Italian matter and said "it seems as if the court wanted to ignore the
role of Christianity in forming Europe's identity, which was and
remains essential."
contribution to the formation and moral growth of people, and it's an
essential component in our civilization," he said in a statement. "It's
wrong and myopic to try to exclude it from education."
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.
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.
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.
court said secular, state-run schools must "observe confessional
neutrality in the context of public education," where attendance is
compulsory.
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.
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.
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.
Mariastella Gelmini said. But she added that "it is not by eliminating
the traditions of individual countries that a united Europe is built."
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."
"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 Bishop's Conference said in a statement.
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Associated Press Writer Constant Brand in Brussels contributed to this report.