European Court: No Crucifixes in Italian Schools

Don’t appeal, ignore. An appeal is a recognition of the Court’s authority, so it’s best to carry on as if this Red court did not exist. That would include refusing to recognize any travel documents, ID cards, or official status of any representative of the Court. Summary deportation of any officer or employee of the Court, including “Italians”, would be even better. What are they going to do about it? Will Germany, Britain, and France gang up and invade? They wouldn’t have the guts to invade Luxembourg without Uncle Stupid to lead the way.

I am an athiest, but a crucifix does not “disturb” me. No more than a Christmas tree.

It’s not just a religious symbol. It was also for many centuries, a symbol (and often the only one) of European unity when Europe was disunited and otherwise without any binding identity.

Granted, perhaps it should not be in a public school where attendance is mandatory for everyone. Jews and Moslems might object. But still, this is Italy.

By the way, is that woman, “Soile Lautsi”, Italian? It certainly does not sound like an Italian name to me!

The idea of seeing a crucifix being “disturbing” to a child is a bit much but schools are there to promote knowledge not dogma so the religious symbols do not belong in the public schools in the first place any more than the schools should be putting up atheist signs declaring god is just a silly superstition. Keeping religion out of public education is the best policy, it has no place there to begin with.

There’s an obvious parallel to be made between the separate European countries and the separate American states, both of which are endangered by the whims of an overreaching government higher up, the EU and the U.S. Federal government respectively. Certain parties in Italy and other parts of Europe have shown resistance in the face of this Crucifix-ban. This is a good sign. Of course they have every right to be outraged. It’s the same proclivity we witness wherever multicultural ideology rears its head: the traditional cultural life of the West is constantly disrupted simply because some naysayer somewhere is offended. Offense does not constitute a crime. No one has the right to not be offended. This seemingly common-sense point cannot be stressed enough.

Here’s a thought. What good is the Catholic Church(I am catholic in name only)to Catholics in Europe? They boast having a billion believers, and yet they are powerless to so many interests that attack them. Why is that?

What goes on in the Vatican mind has long been a mystery to me. I can hardly imagine a more pitiful and weakling defence of Catholic heritage than shown here. The mystery to me is the church claims to be representing God and being God-fearing while putting up such a pathetic defence. For heaven’s sake, children are watching this!

Anonymous wrote at 7:14 PM on November 4:

“By the way, is that woman, “Soile Lautsi”, Italian? It certainly does not sound like an Italian name to me!”

Apparently not, and you weren’t the only one who thought that name sounded non-Italian.

According to this article, she’s “of Finnish origins.”

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_RELIGIOUS_SYMBOLS?SITE=KMOV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-11-03-11-15-41

A human rights court says wearing a cross is a violation of religious and education freedoms… ? When did Europe begin importing American insanity? Immigrants aren’t they only thing they are importing.

“We believe the ruling is a positive signal from Europe to Italy, which seems to increasingly lose its secularism,” Albertin was quoted as saying” If only Italy (and all of Europe) were loosing it’s secularism!

When Italy, Spain, Ireland disestablished the Catholic Church they disestablished their very souls. You can have freedom of religion and an established church. I am a Protestant and feel no threats from Catholicism. Why are atheist so threatened?

Why is it that under the guise of religious tolerance, the Christian religion gets trodden under foot?

Why is it that under the guise of brotherhood, the White race gets the short end of the stick?

Why is it that under the guise of equal opportunity, the White man gets the shaft?

Why is it that under the guise of fairness, our middle-class is shrinking?

I don’t know who is running things, but they surely do not like Whites, the middle-class, or the Christian religion!

Whites are smart and capable,
the middle-class is ambitious and wants to keep what it earns,
Christianity says that God is supreme, not the state.

The state wants it all, and wants everyone to be limp dishrags, dependant on the state.

They want to liquidate the West and its heritage.

“The court said secular, state-run schools must “observe …neutrality in the context of public education,”

Implicit in this ruling is the cult-like blind allegiance to ‘liberal secular humanism’, the contemporary, fad ideology-religion of the new age multicultural enthusiast.

If the Italians want a cross in every class, public or not .. its their business. We don’t need to go back to gladitorial games in the colliseum.. Christianity had a civilizing value to Europe we cannot honestly deny. If the Vatican offends foreigners should it be removed? Notice too when Italians take the field in soccer they make the sign of the cross,..let Italians worry about being Italian and the EU being EUian. A small concession can become a large precedent in the erosion of Identity.

“I am an athiest, but a crucifix does not “disturb” me. No more than a Christmas tree.
It’s not just a religious symbol. It was also for many centuries, a symbol (and often the only one) of European unity when Europe was disunited and otherwise without any binding identity.”

I’m very happy that there are other people who realize this. I’m an atheist too and agree with you.

“The idea of seeing a crucifix being “disturbing” to a child is a bit much but schools are there to promote knowledge not dogma”

But tell me, how is the American flag not “dogma”? It stands not only for a nation but also for a set of philosophical principles. What if one disagrees with those principles? How about the French national symbols and “liberté, egalité, fraternité”? Maybe we should remove all art, music, and literature from schools. They contain dangerous, you know, content and we don’t want to indoctrinate kids!

Unfortunately a civilization can only be founded upon a given set of dogmatic principles, whether it’s Papal infallibility or that God created all men equal. One thing is to have margins of tolerance and let those who disagree (like myself) be citizens. But to remove the foundational principles altogether only weakens society and leaves it open to invaders such as Muslims.

And remove the foundational principles in the name of freedom from indoctrination is a fraud, because it really means that those principles are replaced by other dogma in which kids are indoctrinated, such as multiculturalism and hatred of Western civilization.

That’s why even though I’m an atheist, I don’t believe there should be state laicism the way it’s fashionable these days. It was already a mistake to abolish the Papal States.

“Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi 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.”
“arguments by Italy’s government that it was a national symbol of culture, history, identity, tolerance and secularism.

There’s no hope as long as defenders of the crucifix say that the crucifix represents tolerance and secularism. Ridiculous! What they should say is that yes, we’re a nation that comes from Christianity and proud of it!

I’m of two minds about this. Yes, on the one hand I see no reason for religious symbols to be in public school classrooms, but on the other hand it’s yet another part of the growing interference of red Europe in the affairs of sovereign nations. They should butt out and let the individual countries decide what’s best for them, by themselves.

The Catholics don’t have too much to worry about though, love him or loathe him I’m sure Berlusconi will be along to the rescue sooner or later.

“The idea of seeing a crucifix being “disturbing” to a child is a bit much but schools are there to promote knowledge not dogma so the religious symbols do not belong in the public schools in the first place any more than the schools should be putting up atheist signs declaring god is just a silly superstition. Keeping religion out of public education is the best policy, it has no place there to begin with.”

While I agree with this, I believe it is up to each individual country to decide this, not some outside entity such at the EU or possibly in the future the North American Union. As such, it should be up to Italy, not the EU to decide this. Each nation should have its’ own sovereignty.

“By the way, is that woman, “Soile Lautsi”, Italian? It certainly does not sound like an Italian name to me!”

She’s Finnish. Our export-dependent economy is in trouble now that the industrial exports have all but stopped, so we’re shifting our focus to exporting multiculturalists.

As an adherent to the scientific method, I bristle at the thought of wicca, astrology and religion getting anything but a passing mention in school.

As a capitalist, I abhor unworkable systems like communism getting anything but a passing mention in school.

And as a racist, I object to my schools teaching anything but fact based realities about the groups that inhabit the world.

As a fellow guest in this country, I am disgusted that a Finn would dare move here and then thank her host country by seeking to change a historic tradition, through an alien court system no less.

Catholicism in Italy is quite downplayed and criticism of the Catholic church is openly and often voiced on TV, in the office, and in regular social life. The Catholic cross is present in schools, hospitals, and I believe courts and prisons, as well as other public buildings, but Italians are by no means a heavily religious people. I know more Americans that go to church on Sundays than Italians. Italian public school is absolutely secular. As iyou might imagine, most teachers if anything tend toward the left part of the political spectrum. There is religion class, but students can opt out if they wish.

Italy has ignored other idiotic EU rulings before and I fervently hope they ignore this one too.

2 — Anonymous wrote at 7:14 PM on November 4:

“It’s not just a religious symbol. It was also for many centuries, a symbol (and often the only one) of European unity when Europe was disunited and otherwise without any binding identity.”

It appears that you have notions of history that are incredibly simplified and purposely naive. You claim to be an atheist, but have no real idea of the history of religion in the West. If anything proves the lie of any religion, it has to be what it engenders in reality. Christianity has been little more than a scourge to Europe and the West. Islam merely promises to repeat the process, but bring a racial change with it as well.

Pre-Christian Europe was united enough to fight the Romans when they invaded. Historians have shown how pre-Christian Europeans were connected and were largely at peace with one another. It wasn’t until the Romans that Europe became unstable and vulnerable to Eastern invasions. After Rome changed its identity to a theocratic state, they re-invaded the rest of Europe and conquered it again. Then, they spent a thousand years (more, actuall) killing off anyone who dissented or had a different idea in thousands of the worst known cases of torture and murder in history. Their success is illustrated in by the large number of Europeans and other Westerners that cannot seem to grasp the truth of their history and religion, but insist that it has something to do with their survival. It drove destructive wars that resulted in repeated population purges with the 20th century as the “coupe de grace.”

My opinion is that Europe would have been better off and defended itsself better, and more importantly, not warred with itself, had Christianity never arrived. On the other hand, much of what on in Europe went on, regardless or in spite of Christian suppression and its maneuvering for control. The reason the Vatican is so powerless today is that it is simply too easy to know what they are doing and how it is being done. They can’t get away with the methods that got them into power. Now, all they can do is insist on their views, but not enforce them. That makes all the differnece.

Catholicism is a forceful presence in Italy. Catholicism is so intertwined with Italian culture that trying to secularize that culture is equal to de-Italianizing it. The European Court of Human Rights, following an ugly Zeitgeist directive of modern Western decay, wants to make Italy more denatured and antiseptic.
Most Italians I’ve met are not profoundly religious, but Catholicism is just part of the cultural landscape there. What about religious and cultural rights?

I’ve visited Italy in the winter around Christmas and I found it heartwarming and reassuring to see Nativity statues everywhere in public spaces. Italy doesn’t have an alien elitist minority running organizations like the ACLU. Italy is not as “diverse” as the USA. It is more harmonious and realizes the importance of tradition.

Much of the great art of Italy is Christian in content. How long before the great works of Michelangelo, Titan, Raphael, Giotto, Bernini, and other Western geniuses are declared hateful to the immigrants/newcomers to Italy? I will not support the cultural dismemberment of Italy—NEVER!

“Pre-christian Europe was united enough to fight the Romans when they invaded” ..But..not to win* The way humanity unfolded was hotly contested with ideas and blood. Whether it was whites spreading around the globe with their cerebral nature or earlier Romans around the Mediteranian with the same mental impulse… its not a accident, as I see it. Neither likely was the victory of Christianity in Europe. For sure there was much horror done in the name of Christianity and in my own mind this debate has gone on for years,.. as well as the crippling nature of people that would rather “worship truth than live it” as I think alan Watts said. Religion is a crutch that maintains the infanilism of its practitioners, seperating them from reality first hand and giving the larger numbers of lesser apt peoples that cling to it unnatural advantage in repressing or destroying the superior intellects of the human family. The previous sentance often can seem true but on the whole I still believe there is a divine being at bottom of reality and though imperfect, Christianity adresses this divinity to many valid people. The genius that gestated and cross fertilized in the Mediteranian basin between Alexandria, Palestine,Greece and Rome between two to four thousand years ago seems to have been the genisis of the world we live in.

Anonymous 7:14 PM November 4 – I’ll answer to you, even if I’m not the same person who wrote the original comment.

“It appears that you have notions of history that are incredibly simplified and purposely naive. You claim to be an atheist, but have no real idea of the history of religion in the West.”

I think it’s you who have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you the same person I debated with a few days ago in a thread about Somalia? I invite you to go back and read my arguments there.

“Historians have shown how pre-Christian Europeans were connected and were largely at peace with one another.”

Which historians? Which pre-Christians Europeans? The Greeks? The Celts? The Scythians? Who are you talking about?

“Pre-Christian Europe was united enough to fight the Romans when they invaded.”

That the Romans met some resistance doesn’t mean that their enemies were united. The Gauls and Germans were costantly fighting each other. So were the Greeks (Athens versus Sparta, you know). Everywhere the Romans conquered, they won by exploiting the conflict among the different tribes and helping one against the other ones. Read Julius Caesar. Read Machiavelli.

“It wasn’t until the Romans that Europe became unstable and vulnerable to Eastern invasions.”

Even if this were true (and I don’t think it makes a lot of sense), so what? Are you trying to hint that it was because of Christianity?
Nonsense. Every time the Europeans managed to resist the Islamic invaders, they did so specifically by appealing to the Christian faith. This is true for all the great warriors of Europe - Charles Martel, El Cid, Godfrey of Bouillon, Richard Lionheart, Mathias Corvinus, Jan Sobieski. The logical conclusion is that without Christianity, Europe would have been defeated.
If you value the ability to fight Eastern invaders, you should consider that Western Europe was at its greatest strenght when it was uniformly Catholic, at the time of the Reconquista and the Crusades. At that time Europe was actually able to bring the war to the Levant.

“After Rome changed its identity to a theocratic state, they re-invaded the rest of Europe and conquered it again.”

Excuse me? Is that Dan Brown history?
You seem to believe that Christianity was somehow imposed by conquest on Europe. Would you please elaborate and tell me when and how exactly such a religious war of conquest took place? I’ll answer for you – it never happened.
The various Germanic nations such as the Lombards were already Christian when they invaded Rome. It was they who conquered Rome, not the other way around.
Britain was first conquered by pagan Anglo-Saxon, and then the Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity due to the activity of Irish missionaries. No religious war there.
Scandinavia and Russia became Christian around the 10-11th century. Had they been invaded and conquered by the Holy Roman Empire or any other Christian nation? No. They converted spontaneously.
I’ll concede that Lithuania was converted by force in the 13th century. It’s a small part of Europe. It doesn’t justify your ridiculous position that the whole of Europe was converted by conquest.

“Then, they spent a thousand years (more, actuall) killing off anyone who dissented or had a different idea”

Tell me, if not being a Christian was really such a capital crime, how do you explain that Europe was full of Jews who prospered.
“Inquisition” is a scare word. But every single empire in history massacred rebels and dissenters, and if you measure the actual persecutions that took place in the Middle Ages, you’ll be surprised to discover that Christian Europe was milder to dissent than most other civilizations. Read a few articles about the Inquisition by Thomas Madden.

“in thousands of the worst known cases of torture and murder in history.”

The worst in history? It seems you have no idea of history. Read something about the life of Timur and see if his atrocities compare to anything the Christians did.
As for Europe, the worst torture and murder came from pagan, and I underscore pagan, pirates and bandits such as the Vikings and Magyars. It was their raids that kept Europe unsafe and poor for the second half of the first millennium. Those raids ceased as those populations converted to Christianity, and the common religion made trade and prosperity possibile in the second millennium.

“It drove destructive wars that resulted in repeated population purges with the 20th century as the coupe de grace.”

It’s beyond ridiculous to maintain that the massacres of the 20th century were somehow caused by Christianity. If systems of thought are to be blamed for those massacres, it’s anti-Christian ideologies such as Communism and Nazism. And yes, Nazism was anti-Christian. That Nazis attempted to force Christian priests to teach Nazism at church, doesn’t mean Nazism was Christian. The Nazis also had plans to abolish Christianity after the war. Among the Nazis who were asked about their religion at the Nuremberg trials, some declared themselves atheists, others declared Nazism itself to be their religion, but none said he was a Christian.
The population of Europe in the 13th century, at the height of Church power and before the Black Plague, was much greater than it was at the height of the Roman Empire. Back then wars among Christians were relatively rare and low in body count. It got much worse in the modern age, due to the Catholic-Protestant split, and later due to decline in faith, and eventually the rise of atheistic totalitarian states. I know this sounds odd to you because liberal university professors tend to avoid such a logical conclusion, but a honest evaluation of history shows that the massacres among Europeans are inversely proportional to religious unity and strenght of Christian faith.

“Now, all they can do is insist on their views, but not enforce them. That makes all the differnece.”

And yet diversity is being enforced in Europe by the committed atheists who rule the EU! Makes you think doesn’t it?

“The court case was brought by Adel Smith of the Union of the Muslims of Italy. Of a Scots family, Mr Smith converted to Islam in 1987. In public, he termed the crucifix a “small body on two wooden sticks”. He wanted Koran prayers displayed at his children’s school and lobbied to have an “offensive” 15th century Giovanni di Modena fresco removed from Bologna cathedral and Dante’s Divine Comedy deleted from the school syllabus. He said both showed the prophet Mohammed cast into hell.”

One Muslim immigrant directs Italy’s entire country’s educational system policy on religious artifacts? Fascinating. How could this ever be allowed to be I wonder? Of course the Muslim wanted Koran prayers displayed. I think I may have a solution to this unfortunate situation. Simply display the Muslims head instead. Problem solved.

The biggest massacres of the 20th century sprang not from Christianity or Catholicism. They came from the Marxists and their ilk. Period. Stalin, Yagoda, Kaganovich, Beria, Mao and their cohorts killed far more people than Hitler ever dreamed of. The descendants of the bolsheviks etc are the reason Europe is having an influx of Muslim invaders. They are the reason for the immigration problems in the US.

Good post, Italien!

Christianity is Europe, and Europe is Christianity.

Christianity could be reclaimed, very easily, by Europe. We raised it, we groomed it, we must disassociate it from the bad company it now enjoins.

Christianity pointed the way toward the excellence in all things that Europe and America have now forsaken.

J’espere que vous allez passer un bon weekend, Italien!

21 — Sardonicus wrote at 10:12 AM on November 6:
Much of the great art of Italy is Christian in content. How long before the great works of Michelangelo, Titan, Raphael, Giotto, Bernini, and other Western geniuses are declared hateful to the immigrants/newcomers to Italy? I will not support the cultural dismemberment of Italy—NEVER!
———————————————-

Sir: Your determination is commendable, but you are unable to prevent even the dismembermemberment of your OWN country — a process which you, and we all, see going on before our eyes. What are we to do about it?

I might add too, that not only Italy’s great art is largely Christian in content, but so is Europe’s. Even Bach, a Protestant, wrote masses and cantatas, for instance.

One of the reasons for all this art is that the Church, being immensely wealthy (and the Pope a temporal ruler) was in a position to commission works of art from the greatest artists. And artists, needing to earn a living like us all, produce what they are paid to produce.

Also, in a time before movies, magazines and television, art was the most effective form of propaganda to reach and sway the masses. Today, chapel ceilings and stained glass windows have been replaced by TV screens. As instruments of propaganda they seem to have outlived their usefulness. We now regard them as merely beautiful relics of another time gone past, interesting in their own right, but nothing more than “art”. We no longer take the themes they depict literally or have visions from them.

“We now regard them as merely beautiful relics of another time gone past, interesting in their own right, but nothing more than “art”. We no longer take the themes they depict literally or have visions from them.” Anonymous

Anonymous, my point is that many of the newcomers to Europe do not regard these art works as “relics of another time gone past” but as an affront to their religion. They have a depth of religious feeling lacking among the general population. This means a culture war that could have been avoided by a sensible immigration policy. The banning of the cross in schools is just one example. As far as what can be done about it, posting to this site could be considered an act of non violent résistance.

This is the thing that realyy others me: non-Whites and their alien religions come to our western countries, and say they are «disturbed» at the sight of symbols of our own cultures and religion.

But what about us, the indigenous majority? It doesn’t matter at all to them, that we might be «disturbed» if they tell us to hide such symbols, while they go on building mosques and Sikh temples in our cities?