Vatican criticizes court’s crucifix decision

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Italian politicians joined the Vatican to criticize a European court’s decision that displaying crucifixes in Italy’s public schools violates the human rights of nonbelievers. “For us it is an absolutely unacceptable sentence,” said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose center-right government said it will appeal the decision, issued on Tuesday (Nov. 3) by […]

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Italian politicians joined the Vatican to criticize a European court’s decision that displaying crucifixes in Italy’s public schools violates the human rights of nonbelievers.

“For us it is an absolutely unacceptable sentence,” said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose center-right government said it will appeal the decision, issued on Tuesday (Nov. 3) by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

“On delicate questions common sense sometimes falls victim to the law,” said Pierluigi Bersani, leader of the center-left Democratic Party. “Ancient traditions such as the crucifix cannot be offensive to anyone.”


The European court did not order removal of the crucifixes, which, under a 1929 agreement between the Italy and the Vatican, are supposed to hang in all classrooms and courtrooms.

Instead, the seven judges awarded 5,000 euro (about $7,400) in damages to a woman in northeastern Italy who charged that the religious symbols interfered with her right to raise her children according to secular principles.

“The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities, and especially in classrooms, … 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 decision read.

The human rights court, which is not a body of the European Union but whose rulings are binding on Italy as a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, left it to Italian authorities to enact measures to enforce compliance with the ruling.

Catholic leaders denounced the court’s action.

“This Europe of the third millennium leaves us only the pumpkins of the recently celebrated holiday and takes away the dear symbols,” said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as Vatican secretary of state is the church’s second highest official after Pope Benedict XVI. “This religious symbol is a symbol of universal love, not of exclusion but of welcome.”

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