The principle that in public schools should not be exposed religious symbols is a fundamental norm of almost all modern states. Exceptions are only Italy and other countries where the Vatican has always exercised great influence, such as Spain, where the same issue has caused controversy between the church and the secular government of Zapatero. It's absolutely normal that the European Court in Strasbourg consider the crucifix in the classroom a violation of religious freedom.
The action grew out from a small town and an italian mother of Finnish origin who obtained the respect of a fundamental right that Italian politics, always anxious to please the Vatican, ignored for years. The judiciary and even the Constitutional Court had already been dealing with the problem on other occasions, often ruling to remove the crucifix and sometimes stating that they were not competent to decide. The presence of the crucifix in schools dates back to a law of 1857, then repeated during the fascism years on several occasions. Actually, before Fascism, when the Italian state after 1870 and the breach of Porta Pia had bad relations with the Vatican, the crucifixes had disappeared from many schools. The same happened after the regime fell in 1945, and in the years after 1968. Although many don't know, there are many schools in Italy that do not exhibit any cross on the walls since decades. Because the reality of things is that practicing Catholics really are only 20-30% of the population but even if they were 99%, the school and the state must be secular and do not expose the symbols of a religion rather than another.
The many atheists, secular, Muslims, Protestants parents now living in Italy has no desire that their children study under a purely Catholic symbol, because it is still a symbol of "propaganda" of a particular faith. Catholic parents are always perfectly free to hang crucifixes in their own home, or to send their children to Catholic schools.
But the most disturbing aspect of this mania of the crucifix in the classroom used by the political right as "defense of our tradition" and similar amenities is that really the true Christians in this country are unfortunately a small minority. Some are among the ranks of Catholics, even among the priests, others are secular or atheists. True Christians are in fact those who live according to a message that was very simple: love and understanding for others, never to be hypocritical, never impose on others your beliefs. A message that the Church's history has been lost on the road between wars and massacres, and that a figure as St. Francis had tried in vain to restore.
A true Christian cannot accept the rejections of refugees, can not accept discrimination and racism, can not accept that innocent people are put in prison, nor that people who have violated a law are murdered in prison outside of any justice. A true Christian should always oppose the prisons, because Christ forgave sinners and said to turn the other cheek and to respond to evil with good (Matthew - 5, 38).
It's pretty obvious to whom has actually read the Gospel, unlike those who use the figure of Christ as an excuse to hate their neighbor, that no true Christian would dream of imposing symbols of his faith to those who do not want them. It's obvious that the meaning of the preaching of Christ was to convince by example and not trying to impose laws to those who do not believe in them. It's obvious reading the Gospel that Christ to begin with would never have created wooden statuettes in his image, much less was going to hang them around. But False Christians have never read the Gospel, and if they did not understand anything.
But there are the true Christians, who are very few, and then there are the false ones, which put into practice only some parts of the Gospel: the behavior of the Pharisees, the priests of the Sanhedrin and all the hypocrites that Christ condemned repeatedly. If they, for a change, would read the book that they say inspire them, should immediately stop trying to impose on others their own beliefs. And Italy would certainly be a better country if there were fewer crucifixes and more true Christians.
Francesco Defferrari
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