Crucifixes Have No Place In Italy's Public Classrooms: Court

By Frank James

In a decision reminiscent of the U.S. Supreme Court 1962 decision banning of prayer in public school classrooms, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against the Italian government, saying it was wrong for it to display crucifixes in public-school classrooms.

The decision resulted from a complaint filed by a woman, Soile Lautsi, who lives in Abano Terme, a town in northern Italy about 37 miles west of Venice. She was troubled back in 2001-2002 by the crucifixes in the classrooms where her children, then 11 and 13, were taught.

According to the European Court's press release, Lautsi complained first to Italian authorities and then, after years of getting no satisfaction, to the human rights court.

Here's an excerpt from the press release which references the European Convention of Human Rights:

The presence of the crucifix -- which it was impossible not to notice in the classrooms -- 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. This could be encouraging for religious pupils, but also disturbing for pupils who practised other religions or were atheists, particularly if they belonged to religious minorities. The freedom not to believe in any religion (inherent in the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Convention) was not limited to the absence of religious services or religious education: it extended to practices and symbols which expressed a belief, a religion or atheism. This freedom deserved particular protection if it was the State which expressed a belief and the individual was placed in a situation which he or she could not avoid, or could do so only through a disproportionate effort and sacrifice.

The State was to refrain from imposing beliefs in premises where individuals were dependent on it. In particular, it was required to observe confessional neutrality in the context of public education, where attending classes was compulsory irrespective of religion, and where the aim should be to foster critical thinking in pupils.

The Court was unable to grasp how the display, in classrooms in State schools, of a symbol that could reasonably be associated with Catholicism (the majority religion in Italy) could serve the educational pluralism that was essential to the preservation of a "democratic society" as that was conceived by the Convention, a pluralism that was recognised by the Italian Constitutional Court.

The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities, and especially in classrooms, thus restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions, and the right of children to believe or not to believe. The Court concluded, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 taken jointly with Article 9 of the Convention.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reported the following for the network's newscast:

The court ordered the government to pay the woman $7,400 but stopped short of ordering Italy to remove the crucifixes, which are displayed in schools in accordance with a law dating from the Fascist era.

Italian Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola said the sentence is a violent attack against the feelings of the Italian people. And the government says it will appeal.

The human rights court's press release provides some of the history of the Lautsi's case. Of particular interest is the decision made by an Italian administrative court.

In 2005, that court reasoned that the crucifix was no longer a religious symbol but a secular symbol.

The relevant press-release snippet:

... On 17 March 2005 that court dismissed the applicant's complaint. It held that the crucifix was both the symbol of Italian history and culture, and consequently of Italian identity, and the symbol of the principles of equality, liberty and tolerance, as well as of the State's secularism. By a judgment of 13 February 2006, the Consiglio di Stato dismissed the applicant's appeal, on the ground that the cross had become one of the secular values of the Italian Constitution and represented the values of civil life.

I suppose it's all in how you define secular. But it strains credulity to argue that the depiction of Christ crucified isn't, on its face, a religious symbol. The human rights commission didn't buy it. And neither would millions of people around the world, including Christians.